ihunta's Identifications

Saliña Sint Marie, Jan Kok, Curaçao. Large schools present in the shallows of the saliña, with several spawning pairs observed.

The sole South American Cyprinodontinae species (as currently recognized) and the only South American pupfish outside of the endemic genus Orestias of the Andean altiplano. However, taxon C. dearborni is paraphyletic and has been applied to all similar-looking Cyprinodon of Northern South America (Haney, Turner, & Rand, 2009). The monophyly of C. dearborni is clearly rejected by molecular data which shows that the taxon consists of two lineages (with possibly more undescribed); one is a long-term South American endemic and basal member of Cyprinodon, whereas the other is a more recent colonizer of the ‘maritime clade’ related to the widespread C. variegatus.

Haney, R. A., Turner, B. J., & Rand, D. M. (2009). A cryptic lineage within the pupfish Cyprinodon dearborni suggests multiple colonizations of South America. Journal of fish biology, 75(5), 1108–1114.