Limia

Limia is a genus of livebearing fishes belonging to the Cyprinodontiform family Poeciliidae. It comprises 22 described species found in fresh, brackish, saltwater, and hypersaline habitats of the Greater Antilles islands in the Caribbean Sea. A vast majority are endemic to Hispaniola. There has been a long-running debate on whether Limia should be considered a subgenus of Poecilia rather than a full genus. Most Limia species are detrivores and herbivores. Due to their small size and coloring, they are sometimes kept in home aquaria.

Limia is a genus of livebearing fishes belonging to the Cyprinodontiform family Poeciliidae. It comprises 22 described species found in fresh, brackish, saltwater, and hypersaline habitats of the Greater Antilles islands in the Caribbean Sea. A vast majority are endemic to Hispaniola. There has been a long-running debate on whether Limia should be considered a subgenus of Poecilia rather than a full genus. Most Limia species are detrivores and herbivores. Due to their small size and coloring, they are sometimes kept in home aquaria.

Evolution and phylogeny

Most recent studies about the origin of limias conclude that the genus colonized the Antilles islands through oceanic dispersal or vicariance. Weaver et al. posit that GAARlandia, a hypothesized land bridge connecting the area of the modern islands to the South American mainland during the Eocene–Oligocene transition, might have enabled the fish to reach the Antilles through a combination of dispersal, vicariance, and island hopping. Weaver et al. believe that Limia ancestors are unlikely to have arrived exclusively over land, however, because Limia and all other native Antillean species are tolerant of saltwater; if a land bridge had been sufficient, intolerant species would have also colonized the islands. Limia forms a clade with Pamphorichthys, Mollienesia, Micropoecilia, and Poecilia. Some authorities advocate for all of these taxa to be considered separate genera. In contrast, others maintain that some or all of them should be treated as subgenera of the genus Poecilia. The sister clade to Limia is the one formed by the Hispaniolan Poecilia species P. elegans, P. dominicensis, and P. hispaniolana; all three have been found to be more closely related to Limia than to other Poecilia species, adding to the uncertainty in the taxonomic designations of Poecilia. Limia and the Hispaniolan Poecilia species diverged from Pamphorichthys during the Eocene–Oligocene transition. The first to split off from the other Limia species, near the Oligocene–Miocene boundary, was L. melanogaster, which went on to colonize Jamaica. This was followed by the colonization of the combined Cuba-Hispaniola landmass. When the Windward Passage divided the landmass into the modern islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, the ancestors of L. vittata and L. caymanensis split from the Hispaniolan species.

Species

Based on the number and shape of teeth and preopercular pores, Rivas separated the Limia species into two subgenera: Limia and Odontolimia. All seven Odontolimia species are endemic to Lake Miragoâne. One species, Pseudolimia heterandria from Venezuela, was placed in the genus Limia when it was described in 1913, but was moved to its own genus, Pseudolimia, in 2002.

Odontolimia

Limia fuscomaculata Rivas, 1980 (blotched limia) Limia garnieri Rivas, 1980 (Garnier's limia) Limia grossidens Rivas, 1980 (largetooth limia) Limia immaculata Rivas, 1980 (plain limia) Limia mandibularis Rodriguez-Silva, Torres-Pineda & Josaphat, 2020 (jawed limia) Limia miragoanensis Rivas, 1980 (Miragoane limia) Limia ornata Regan, 1913 (ornate limia)

Limia

Limia caymanensis Rivas & W. L. Fink, 1970 (Grand Cayman limia) Limia dominicensis (Valenciennes, 1846) (Tiburon Peninsula limia) Limia islai, Rodriguez-Silva & Weaver, 2020 (tiger limia) Limia melanogaster (Günther, 1866) (blackbelly limia) Limia melanonotata Nichols & G. S. Myers, 1923 (blackbanded limia) Limia nigrofasciata Regan, 1913 (black-barred limia) Limia pauciradiata Rivas, 1980 (few-rayed limia) Limia perugiae (Evermann & H. W. Clark, 1906) (Perugia's limia) Limia rivasi L. R. Franz & G. H. Burgess, 1983 (Rivas's limia) Limia sulphurophila Rivas, 1980 (sulfur limia) Limia tridens (Hilgendorf, 1889) Limia versicolor (Günther, 1866) (varicolored limia) Limia vittata (Guichenot, 1853) (Cuban limia) Limia yaguajali Rivas, 1980 (Yaguajal limia) Limia zonata (Nichols, 1915) (striped limia)

Ecology

Most Limia species inhabit inland waters such as rivers, springs, and lakes. Some are confined to relatively cool mountain streams. While most are found in freshwater habitats, some species inhabit karst environments high in dissolved inorganic salts or in saline lakes. A few are even found in hypersaline coastal lagoons. Most Limia species prefer to feed on detritus and algae, with some Hispaniolan species, such as L. nigrofasciata, showing a specialization in detrivory. A trend towards a limnivore diet has also been recorded in the genus. Widespread species such as L. perugiae, L. versicolor, and L. zonata have been found to have a more generalized diet, which (especially in the wet season) includes aquatic invertebrates.

References

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1362971117 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.