A NEW GENUS OF Hemigobius GENERIC GROUP GOBY BASED ON MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR EVIDENCE, WITH DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES

Wuhanlinigobius, a new genus of Hemigobius generic group would been established and assigned from Mugilogobius polylepis Wu and Ni, 1985. Mugilogobius polylepis has been regarded as belong to genus Eugnathogobius based on lacking head pores and representing longitudinal sensory papillae in previous taxonomic study. However, we compared the osteological features of Mugilogobius polylepis Wu and Ni, 1985 and Eugnathogobius microps Smith, 1931 as well as the molecular phylogenetic analysis based on the mtDNA ND5, Cyt-b genes and D-loop region. The molecular phylogenetic tree including 9 related Hemigobius generic group reveal that this new genus represents an independent clade which is well separate from other related Hemigobius generic group. The papillae pattern, osteological features and molecular evidence strongly conclude that Eugnathogobius polylepis should be a new genus of Hemigobius generic group, on the other hand, an additional new species of Wuhanlinigobius also will be described herein, and the diagnostic key of this new genus will be provided in this paper.