''Chalceus'' is a genus of fish that inhabits freshwater habitats in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. Members can be found in the

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

and

Orinoco The Orinoco () is one of the longest rivers in South America at . Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers approximately 1 million km2, with 65% of it in Venezuela and 35% in Colombia. It is the List of rivers by discharge, f ...

basins, as well as in the

Guianas The Guianas, also spelled Guyanas or Guayanas, are a geographical region in north-eastern South America. Strictly, the term refers to the three Guianas: Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, formerly British Guiana, British, Surinam (Dutch colo ...

and various tributaries of the former. It is the sole representative of the family Chalceidae, the tucanfishes.

Description

Members of the genus ''Chalceus'' typically reach a length of , but are up to about . They have an elongated shape, and relatively large scales. Their fins are a variety of colors, most commonly red, yellow, or

hyaline A hyaline substance is one with a glassy appearance. The word is derived from , and . Histopathology Hyaline cartilage is named after its glassy appearance on fresh gross pathology. On light microscopy of H&E stained slides, the extracellula ...

, with a red or pink tail being the most common.

Classification

''Chalceus'' was previously classified as a member of the family

Characidae Characidae, the characids, is a family of freshwater subtropical and tropical fish belonging to the order Characiformes. They are found throughout much of Central and South America, including such major waterways as the Amazon and Orinoco Riv ...

, and is still listed there by some authorities (like

GBIF The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the ...

and

ITIS The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) is an American partnership of federal agencies designed to provide consistent and reliable information on the taxonomy of biological species. ITIS was originally formed in 1996 as an interagenc ...

). However, recent

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

and morphological analysis has prompted a move into the family Chalceidae, which is currently home only to the genus ''Chalceus'' (making it

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

).Oliveira, C., Avelino, G.S., Abe, K.T., Mariguela, T.C., Benine, R.C., Orti, G., Vari, R.P., & Correa e Castro, R.M. (2011)
Phylogenetic relationships within the speciose family Characidae (Teleostei: Ostariophysi: Characiformes) based on multilocus analysis and extensive ingroup sampling.
''BMC Evolutionary Biology, 11: 275. doi: 10.1186/1471-2148-11-275'' This move was also done in order to keep the family Charadicae monophyletic. Currently, there are eight accepted species in the genus ''Chalceus''. In alphabetical order, they are: * '' Chalceus epakros'' Zanata & Toledo-Piza, 2004 * '' Chalceus erythrurus''

Cope A cope ( ("rain coat") or ("cape")) is a liturgical long mantle or cloak, open at the front and fastened at the breast with a band or clasp. It may be of any liturgical colour. A cope may be worn by any rank of the Catholic or Anglican clerg ...

, 1870 (tucan fish) * '' Chalceus fasciatus'' Jardine, 1841 * '' Chalceus guaporensis'' Zanata & Toledo-Piza, 2004 * '' Chalceus latus'' Jardine, 1841 * '' Chalceus macrolepidotus'' G. Cuvier, 1818 (pinktail chalceus) * ''

Chalceus spilogyros ''Chalceus spilogyros'', sometimes misspelled as ''Chalceus spilogyrus'', is a species of freshwater fish in the family Chalceidae that inhabits northern South America. It is a relatively new member of the genus ''Chalceus'', along with ''Chalceu ...

'' Zanata & Toledo-Piza, 2004 * '' Chalceus taeniatus'' Jardine, 1841 NB: Those described by Jardine are currently

Species inquirenda In biological classification, a ''species inquirenda'' is a species of doubtful identity requiring further investigation. The use of the term in English-language biological literature dates back to at least the early nineteenth century. The ter ...

History

The genus ''Chalceus'' was established by

Georges Cuvier Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier (23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier (; ), was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuv ...

in the year 1818 when he described the pinktail chalceus (''C. marcolepidotus'') as a new species in a new genus. By way of monotypy, the pinktail became the type species therein. The next established species was the tucan fish, ''C. erythrurus'', which was named by

Edward Drinker Cope Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontology, paleontologist, comparative anatomy, comparative anatomist, herpetology, herpetologist, and ichthyology, ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker fam ...

in 1870, though he first classified it in the genus ''Plethodectes'' with the full name ''Plethodectes erythrurus''. In 1872, he moved it to ''Chalceus''. A full redescription of the genus occurred in the year 2004, undertaken by Brazilian biologists

Angela M. Zanata Angela may refer to: People * Angela (given name), a feminine name, includes a list of people with the name * Angela (surname), an Italian surname, includes a list of people with the name * Angela (enslaved woman) (fl. 1619–1625), an African ...

and

Mônica Toledo-Piza {{Short pages monitor