Fisheries scientists have known for years that two species of bonefish reside in the waters of South Florida and the Caribbean -- albula vulpes and albula garcia, or species B.
But before they could fill in the blanks of those respective life histories came recent confirmation from geneticists there is a third -- previously unknown and as yet unnamed -- species of one of the region's most economically important gamefish.
The new species can not be identified by physical appearance -- only by examining DNA in the cell nucleus from bits of clipped dorsal fins. Geneticists at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg made the discovery recently based on samples taken from the Keys; the western, undeveloped side of Andros Island in the Bahamas; Mexico's Yucatan region; the Virgin Islands; and Grand Bahama Island.
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