[[ Merodoras new genus]]

During the preparation of “Peixes do Pantanal,” a book on fishes from the “Pantanal” region of western Brazil, one of us (HAB) discovered specimens of a new genus and species of Doradidae (see Britski et al., 1999). Higuchi (1992) applied the name “ Merodoras nheco ” to this discovery and a complete description of the genus and species appears in an appendix to his unpublished doctoral dissertation. The name “ Merodoras ” subsequently appeared in de Pinna (1998), but remained unavailable. The new genus and species belong to the new subfamily Astrodoradinae, a monophyletic group that was first recognized by Higuchi (1992; see also de Pinna, 1998, Moyer et al., 2002) that includes Amblydoras ^ZBK, Anadoras ^ZBK, Astrodoras ^ZBK, Hypodoras ^ZBK, Physopyxis, and Scorpiodoras ^ZBK. This paper formally describes this new genus and species, and nominates the new subfamily Astrodoradinae . It also includes comments on the taxonomy of the subfamily Astrodoradinae and a discussion of its phylogenetic relationships based on morphological characters of the new taxon.