Five new species of Western Atlantic stardrums, Stellifer (Perciformes: Sciaenidae) with a key to Atlantic Stellifer species Author Chao, Ning Labbish 0000-0002-0474-8740 National Museum of Marine Biology, Pingtung, Taiwan; Bio-Amazonia Conservation International, Brookline, MA, USA. https: // orcid. org / 0000 - 0002 - 0474 - 8740 Author Carvalho-Filho, Alfredo 0000-0002-2903-7355 Fish Bizz Ltda, R. D. Maria Garcez, n. 39, 05424 - 070, Pinheiros, São Paulo, Brazil. https: // orcid. org / 0000 - 0002 - 2903 - 7355 Author Santos, Jonas De Andrade Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Biológicas (Zoologia) - Laboratório de Ictiologia, Departamento de Sistemática e Ecolo- text Zootaxa 2021 2021-06-25 4991 3 434 466 journal article 10.11646/zootaxa.4991.3.2 1175-5326 5042387 2DE8BCED-7F34-4A5D-9F2D-16F442D8273A Conclusions on Stellifer and sciaenid taxonomy The subfamily Stelliferinae is unique within Sciaenidae by having a two-chambered gas bladder and an enlarged pair of lapillus, about the same size as the sagitta. Both characters are also present in the Indo-West Pacific Johnius (tribe Johniini ) which has a slightly enlarged lapillus but less than one-third the size of the sagitta, they also have an expanded anterior end of the gas bladder ( Chao 1986 ; Chao et al. 2019 ). Thus, because they are distant in sciaenid phylogeny, their share a last common ancestor dating from the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene expansions ( Lo et al. 2015 ), these characters are probably convergent. In this study, we found that Stellife r species (e.g. S. collettei ) can show significant geographic variation. Recent studies of Southwestern Atlantic sciaenids, such as Bairdiella ( Marceniuk et al. 2019 ) , Macrodon ( Carvalho-Filho et al. 2010 ) , Menticirrhus ( Marceniuk et al. 2020 ) , and Isopisthus ( Guimarães-Costa et al. 2020 ) have shown that cryptic species are not uncommon. These studies demonstrated that the hidden diversity is often found in species caught as fisheries by-catch, reinforcing the need for detailed studies on taxonomy and zoogeography that can lead to better conservation management. We expect that Stellifer and widely distributed sciaenids (e.g. Cynoscion and Micropogonias ) might have similar patterns, when samples become available for further molecular and morphological study.