Neoarius Castelnau, 1878

BI 0.74

(Figs 1–2, 48)

Type species: Arius curtisii Castelnau, 1878 .

Diagnosis

Mesethmoid median portion moderately wide (2, 2> 1); pterotic mesial border with parieto-supraoccipital longer than anterior border with sphenotic (36, 0> 1); anterior process of first hypobranchial in middle of bone (174, 0> 1).

Ambiguous optimization: Lateral horn of lateral ethmoid compressed and spatulate (11, 0> 1); one-half or less of interopercle posterior part contacting ventral margin of opercle (131, 1> 0); Müllerian ramus distal one-third markedly curved (208, 1> 2).

Included species

Neoarius berneyi Whitley, 1941

Neoarius graeffei Kner & Steindachner, 1867

Neoarius aff. graeffei sp 1

Neoarius aff. graeffei sp 2

Neoarius hainesi Kailola, 2000

Neoarius midgleyi Kailola & Pierce, 1988

Neoarius pectoralis Kailola, 2000 * sedis mutabilis.

Habitat and distribution: Fresh, brackish, and marine waters, southern New Guinea and Australia (Fig. 38).

Remarks

The MP and BI analyses support the monophyly of Neoarius in contrast to previous morphological studies, which treated the group as asynonymof Ariopsis (Kailola2004) orasavalidgenus (Marceniuk and Menezes 2007, Marceniuk et al. 2012). This study supports the inclusion of Neoarius midgleyi and two currently unnamed species into the genus (Betancur-R. 2009) and renders Amissidens (type species: Arius hainesi Kailola, 2000) into synonymy.