Description and biological observations on a new species of deepwater symphurine tonguefish (Pleuronectiformes: Cynoglossidae: Symphurus) collected at Volcano–19, Tonga Arc, West Pacific Ocean
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Symphurus maculopinnis n. sp., described on a single specimen (USNM 398820; 84.4 mm SL), was collected by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) exploring a hydrothermal vent area located at 561 m on Volcano–19, Tonga Arc, West Pacific (24°48.439' S, 177°0.009' W). This new species is distinctive and readily diagnosed from congeners by the following combination of characters: 1–2–2–2–1 pattern of interdigitation of dorsal proximal pterygiophores and neural spines (ID pattern), 14 caudal-fin rays, 3+6 abdominal vertebrae, 49 total vertebrae, 89 scales in a longitudinal row, 92 dorsal-fin rays, 77 anal-fin rays, blunt squarish snout, thick blind-side lips with conspicuous plicae, and conspicuous ocellated (sometimes partially) spots on posterior dorsal and anal fins. Among Symphurus, only S. ocellatus von Bonde, collected at deepwater locations off East Africa, features a similar ID pattern, 14 caudal-fin rays and spots on the posterior dorsal and anal fins. Symphurus maculopinnis differs distinctly from S. ocellatus in its lower and non-overlapping meristic features (49 vs. 54–56 total vertebrae; 92 vs. 97–103 dorsal-fin rays; and 77 vs. 85–89 anal-fin rays), its squarish (vs. pointed) snout, and thick, plicated blind-side lower lip (vs. thin, non-plicated blind-side lower lip). Additional specimens (N= 56) of S. maculopinnis observed and filmed in situ near active venting sites located between ca. 433-561 m on Volcano–19 provide the basis for behavioral and ecological information recorded for the species. Videotapes reveal one individual of S. maculopinnis featuring reversed (dextral) asymmetry from that typical (sinistral) for members of the Cynoglossidae. Specimens with reversed asymmetry are relatively rare in this family and this S. maculopinnis represents only the second known reversed individual among the approximately 42 species of deep-sea (>200 m) Symphurus.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".