Peces de la subcuenca del río Catatumbo, cuenca del Lago de Maracaibo, Colombia y Venezuela.

Records from the literature supplemented by reviewing reference collection specimens of fish in the Humboldt Institute - IAvH-P, Rancho Grande Biological Station - EBRG and Museum of Natural Sciences Guanare - MCNG, show 109 freshwater native species and 14 of marine estuarine origin living in the Catatumbo river basin, making it the system with the highest diversity of fish species on Maracaibo Lake. These species belong to 10 orders, 39 families and 91 genera. The taxonomic orders with the highest number of families, genera and species were Siluriformes with 12 families, 42 genera and 61 species and Characiformes with 11 families, 24 genera and 32 species. The richest families were Loricariidae (16 genera and 25 species), Characidae (13 genera and 18 species) and Pimelodidae (6 genera and 8 species), there were between one and five species recorded in each of the remaining 37 families. Of the 123 species registered, 69 were collected and cataloged as sampling results of this study and 11 are new registers for Colombia. As for the Catatumbo 61 of the 68 species are considered endemic to the Maracaibo Lake basin and 40 were established themselves as commonly fished species for commercial purposes, six marine - estuarine and 34 freshwater. This paper discusses changes in the number of species registered in the different lists and their implications for species richness Catatumbo basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]