Taxonomy & naming
Paracanthopoma jiparanaensis was described in 2026 by Elisabeth Henschel, Jonathan N. Baskin and Nathan K. Lujan, in a Zootaxa paper covering two new species of Paracanthopoma from Brazil and Venezuela. It belongs to the family Trichomycteridae, subfamily Vandelliinae — the vampire catfishes or candirus, a group whose members are known for entering the gill chambers of larger fish to feed on blood. Paracanthopoma itself was described in 1935 by Léon Giltay and remained a monotypic genus for more than 85 years; the last four years alone have added ten new species, reflecting intensive recent taxonomic attention to Vandelliinae.
The holotype, MZUSP 131553 (formerly cataloged as part of MZUSP 30408), was collected from the Machado River — locally also called the Ji-Paraná — in the Madeira River basin near Palmeira, Rondônia State, Brazil. The description was based on photomicroscopy, cleared-and-stained specimens, and micro-CT imagery. The Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer, California Academy of Sciences) lists Paracanthopoma jiparanaensis Henschel, Baskin & Lujan, 2026 as the currently valid name, with no synonyms.
Phylogenetically, the authors placed P. jiparanaensis and its sister description P. ventuarensis, on the basis of a spine-like anterior process on the parietosupraoccipital bone and an unpaired (azygous) sixth supratemporal lateral-line pore, into a putative clade shared with P. daemon, P. parva, P. carrapata and P. truculenta. The genus's relationship to the closely related genus Paravandellia remains debated in the absence of a dedicated phylogenetic analysis of the subfamily.
Morphology
The full external and osteological description of Paracanthopoma jiparanaensis — including standard measurements, fin-ray and vertebral counts, and coloration — was published behind a subscription paywall and was not accessible for this article; only the paper's abstract and reference list could be consulted. No maximum size is reported here as a result. As in other Paracanthopoma, the body is presumably elongate and scaleless, in keeping with the general Trichomycteridae body plan, but this has not been confirmed specifically for P. jiparanaensis from the material available.
Habitat
Paracanthopoma jiparanaensis is known only from the Machado (Ji-Paraná) River drainage, part of the Madeira River basin in Rondônia State, Brazil — a lowland Amazonian tributary system in northern Brazil. Two related species, Paracanthopoma parva and Paracanthopoma malevola, occur in the same river, indicating this stretch of the Machado supports several Vandelliinae species side by side. No water temperature, pH or hardness data were reported in the material available for this article.
Feeding
Vandelliinae, the subfamily to which Paracanthopoma belongs, is known collectively as the blood-feeding candirus — small catfishes that enter the gill chambers of larger fish to feed on blood, a trait documented for other Paracanthopoma species such as P. parva. Whether P. jiparanaensis specifically has been observed feeding this way has not been reported in the material available for this article; this should be read as genus/subfamily-level context, not a confirmed observation for this species.
Mating
No courtship or reproductive behavior has been reported for Paracanthopoma jiparanaensis; the description paper is a taxonomic and morphological study and does not address reproduction.
Breeding
Breeding biology is entirely undocumented for this species. It has never been kept or bred in captivity.
In the aquarium
Paracanthopoma jiparanaensis is not and has never been part of the aquarium trade. As a member of the blood-feeding candiru subfamily Vandelliinae, wild Paracanthopoma are also generally regarded as unsuitable and potentially hazardous aquarium subjects — genus-level context, not a species-specific finding — and no husbandry information exists for this species.
Conservation
Paracanthopoma jiparanaensis has not been assessed by the IUCN Red List and carries no formal conservation status. It is known from a single drainage (the Machado/Ji-Paraná River), and no information on population trend or threats has been published.