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the zhejiang provincial forest resources monitoring center and the team of yang jinquan, a professor at shanghai ocean university, collaborated to discover and report a new fish species unique to china in east china - the rainbow horsemouth. relevant research results were published in the international academic journal zookeys on october 1.

zhou jiajun, the co-first author of the paper and an engineer at the biodiversity monitoring institute of the zhejiang provincial forest resources monitoring center, said that the rainbow horsemouth is a small, colorful fish that lives in mountain streams in east china. with the popularity of "stream fishing" and "native ornamental fish breeding" in recent years, it has long been exposed to fishing enthusiasts and ornamental fish enthusiasts. however, due to the lack of scientific research, it has long been associated with the long-finned horsemouth distributed in the same or adjacent areas. confused with fish, spiny-cheeked slug and other similar species.

as the country further strengthens the protection of biodiversity resources, relying on the wildlife resource background survey and research project of lin'an district, hangzhou city, zhejiang province, the research team collected a large number of fish specimens of the genus cyperus and echinacea during the investigation in lin'an district. , and conducted in-depth morphological and molecular biological studies.

the study shows that the new species is extremely genetically differentiated compared to all species in the known group of horsemouth fish. combined with morphological analysis, it was determined to be a new species of the genus elostoma. because the male nuptial color of the new species has bright multi-color iridescence, the research team named it "iridescent horsemouth".

subsequent investigation and research also found that the rainbow horsemouth is mainly distributed in the middle and upper reaches of the qiantang river, in the upper reaches of the oujiang river in zhejiang province and in jiangxi province.poyang lakea small amount is also found in streams with clean water in the headwaters of the basin.

yang jinquan introduced that stream fish such as the rainbow horsemouth have high requirements on the ecological environment and water quality, and are an indicator species for the health of the water environment. "protecting stream fish is crucial to maintaining the balance of aquatic ecosystems, and will help maintain biodiversity and promote the sustainable development of ecotourism and fisheries." (reporter xu shunda)