Amphiprion maohiensis O’Donnell, Beldade, Johns & Bernardi, 2025

O’Donnell, James L., Beldade, Ricardo, Johns, Jason & Bernardi, Giacomo, 2025, A new species of Anemonefish from French Polynesia, Amphiprion maohiensis, (Pomacentridae, Amphiprioninae), the Polynesian anemonefish, ZooKeys 1244, pp. 225-237 : 225-237

Amphiprion maohiensis O’Donnell, Beldade, Johns & Bernardi sp. nov.

Figs 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , Suppl. material 1: table S 1

Polynesian Anemonefish.

Type locality. Opunohu, Moorea, French Polynesia, 17.4889°S, 149.8668°W.

Holotype. The holotype is preserved at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California, with the catalog number: CAS-ICH 248601 , adult, Opunohu , Moorea, French Polynesia, 17.4889°S, 149.8668°W, collected with a hand net by O’Donnell, J., 21 June 2016 (Fig. 2 ).

Paratypes. Two other individuals collected with the holotype ( CAS-ICH 248602 ) , one individual from same locality collected in September 2020 ( CAS-ICH 248603 ) , individuals from Raroia Atoll , Tuamotu Archipelago, French Polynesia, ( CAS ICH 202634 ) , and other individuals from French Polynesia ( CAS-ICH 208511 , CAS-ICH 208512 CAS-ICH 202578 , and CAS-ICH 233689 ) .

Comparative material.

Amphiprion chrysopterus CAS 7418 a, CAS 7418 a ( Fiji), and CAS 208514 a, CAS 208514 b, CAS 202579 a, CAS 202579 b, CAS 208508 , CAS 202638 , CAS 233687 a, CAS 233687 b, CAS 202636 , CAS 202641 , CAS 208509 , CAS 208510 , CAS 208513 ( Palau).

Diagnosis and description.

A species of Amphiprion , distinguished by the following combination of characters: dorsal rays X – XI, 17; anal rays II, 14–15, tubed lateral line scales 35–40 (Table 1 ); adult coloration in life; iris dark; body, light orange to dark yellow; two white to bluish bars, the first behind the eye, the second midbody; all fins orange. Distinctive characters compared to A. chrysopterus , morphological: Dorsal fin length (> 58 % of standard length for A. maohiensis , <56 % of standard length in A. chrysopterus ), genetics: species can be unambiguously distinguished both with mitochondrial and nuclear genomic markers (reciprocally monophyletic clades).

Habitat.

Polynesian anemonefish usually occurs in association with Radianthus magnifica (formerly Heteractis magnifica ), the magnificent sea anemone, which is also by very far the most common sea anemone in French Polynesia. Less common sea anemone species may be found and may be associated with Polynesian anemonefish, indicating that they do not show an exclusive association with R. magnifica .

Etymology.

The term ma’ohiensis refers, in Polynesian, to the belonging of native land, ma’ohi. Apostrophes cannot be used in species names (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, Article 32.5. 2), and therefore the species name is maohiensis .

Common name.

We suggest Polynesian anemonefish as the common name of this species that is predominantly, if not exclusively, found in French Polynesia.

Figures

Figure 1. Distribution map of Amphiprion chrysopterus species complex (A. chrysopterus in the west, A. maohiensis in French Polynesia). Localities on the map refer to places used in this study. Localities with ‘ white tail’ coloration are shown with white circles, while the typical ‘ orange tail’ is shown as orange circles. Numbers inside the circles represent the number of individuals that were scored, in those areas, based on iNaturalist pictures. Fish pictures are from Palau (neotype-BPBM 6906, Bishop Museum, picture credit John Randall / FishBase), and Moorea, French Polynesia (picture credit Giacomo Bernardi).

Figure 2. Holotype of Amphiprion maohiensis, Polynesian anemonefish (CAS-ICH 248601, adult, Opunohu, Moorea, French Polynesia, 17.489 ° S, 149.8668 ° W, collected with a hand net by O’Donnell, J., 21 June 2016. Photo credit: Shinji Yamamoto.

Figure 3. Principal components analysis (PCA) cluster plot of Amphiprion chrysopterus and Amphiprion maohiensis based on morphological characters were created in R using the DYPLR and GGPLOT 2 packages. Amphiprion chrysopterus samples from Palau and Fiji are in green and red, respectively; Amphiprion maohiensis samples from French Polynesia are in brown.

Figure 4. Phylogenetic relationships based on the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase 1 (COI) region were obtained using the R package APE. Sequences of Amphiprion chrysopterus were obtained from Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. Sequences of Amphiprion maohiensis were obtained from Moorea, French Polynesia. Outgroups included Amphiprion perideraion and A. sandarocinos. Acronyms represent the code name used in this paper (see Table 1), or the GenBank accession number, followed by three letters that indicate the collection locality. Sequences separate into three clade: one clade from Fiji and Tonga, one clade from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Micronesia (picture of fish from Ulithi Atoll, Micronesia, picture credit, Nicole Crane), and one clade, that represents the new species, from French Polynesia (picture of fish from Moorea, French Polynesia, picture credit, Giacomo Bernardi). Some COI sequences were extracted from whole genome sequencing experiments shown on Fig. 5. Those sequences are labelled with colored circles that are also used on Fig. 5, for consistency and comparison.

Figure 5. Genomics of Amphiprion chrysopterus and Amphiprion maohiensis. The upper panel shows a Principal components analysis (PCA) cluster plot based on whole genome SNPs and created in R using the PLINK package. The lower panel shows the phylogenetic relationships of the same individuals as the upper panel. Genetic distances were obtained with PLINK and phylogenetic relationships were inferred using APE. Individuals of Amphiprion maohiensis are from Moorea (brown), individuals of Amphiprion chrysopterus are from Ulithi Atoll, Micronesia (green), and the outgroup individual was Amphiprion perideraion from Ulithi Atoll, Micronesia (purple).