New species of fish found in Guyana

Local fish researcher Devya Hemraj couldn’t be more excited to reveal her findings from a recently conducted expedition which revealed a whopping 15 new confirmed species of the 160 fresh water fishes that were found.

Hemraj is a passionate member of the fish team that conducted Rapid Biodiversity Inventory in the Acarai-Corentyne Corridor recently, located in southern Guyana and said to be one of the country’s most remote locations.

At an event earlier this week to present the preliminary findings of the inventory done over a 20-day period by the Protected Areas Commission, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and numerous local Guyanese institutions, Devya shared the story.

Even as she has been traveling in Guyana for many years conducting fish research and being in many river basins, Devya shared that this latest experience was by far the most intact habitat that she’s ever encountered.

“Over three weeks, we used a bunch of different fishing gears to ensure we captured as much fish species that we possibly could. From this, we yielded 160 species of fresh water fishes and from this, 15 are confirmed new species or new records for Guyana. What’s even more exciting is that more than 20 of the species that we collected are new to science,” she disclosed.

She used the occasion to point out that of the four main drainages in Guyana, the team sampled two of them and could have possibly done another if it were to extend the corridor a few kilometers north to include the headwaters of the Berbice River.

“The Berbice River has a large amount of endemic species, meaning that the fishes there can only be found there and nowhere else. So by including all three headwaters, we are preserving and protecting fish species that are only found in that part of Guyana,” she explained.

She also pointed out the need for the local knowledge of the indigenous communities to be preserved.

“These folks have been living in this area for many years using fishes in the area for food and they have been doing so sustainably. They know exactly what gear type to use to capture certain species, and they know the location of where they can find all these fishes.”