Accepted by W. Holleman: 24 Aug. 2016; published: 3 Oct. 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 ZOOTAXA ISSN 1175-5326 (print edition) ISSN 1175-5334 (online edition) Copyright © 2016 Magnolia Press Zootaxa 4173 (1): 085–093 http://www.mapress.com/j/zt/ Article 85 http://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4173.1.8 http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:214AF66E-DCCF-444E-A5A2-721E9944EAFD Synchiropus sycorax, a new species of dragonet from the Philippines (Teleostei: Callionymidae) YI-KAI TEA 1 & ANTHONY C. GILL 2,3,4 1 90 Carillon Avenue, Newtown, NSW 2042, Australia. E-mail: teayk1@gmail.com 2 Macleay Museum and School of Life and Environmental Sciences, A12—Macleay Building, The University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. E-mail: anthony.c.gill@sydney.edu.au 3 Ichthyology, Australian Museum, 1 William Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2010, Australia 4 Corresponding author Abstract Synchiropus sycorax n. sp. is described from six specimens (22.6–40.1 mm SL) collected from Jolo Island, Sulu Archi- pelago, Philippines. It appears to be most closely related to S. tudorjonesi, which ranges from the Maldive Islands through Indonesia and the Philippine Islands to southern Japan. The new species differs from S. tudorjonesi and other congeners in live coloration: head and body bright red, bright yellow ventrally, with prominent white spots on head (one spot or blotch over preopercular spine, two elongate spots behind middle of eye, and one spot behind upper part of eye at about 1 o’clock position) and body (in three rows, an uppermost row beginning below soft dorsal, tracking lateral line to caudal peduncle, a lowermost row extending from above anterior anal fin to caudal peduncle, and a middle row extending obliquely from above pectoral fin to anterior part of lowermost series of spots); males with pelvic fin and pelvic-pectoral membrane bright yellow with broad bluish or greenish grey to black submarginal band across distal third of fin. Key words: ichthyology; taxonomy; Jolo Island, Sulu Archipelago Introduction The family Callionymidae consists of small, bottom-associated fishes. Many species are brightly coloured and popular as aquarium specimens. One such species from the Philippine Islands is commonly marketed as the ‘ruby dragonet’, but has not been taxonomically described. We herein describe the species and compare it with related species. Generic placement of the new species is problematic, and we therefore adopt a conservative approach in tentatively assigning it to the genus  are two contrasting generic classifications in use for callionymid fishes. Nakabo (1982) recognised 19 genera, mostly on the basis of osteological and external characters (see Nakabo 1983). Conversely, Fricke (1983) recognised only nine genera, placing the bulk of the species in two genera, Synchiropus and Callionymus Linnaeus (1758). Although Nakabo’s (1982, 1983) characters and proposed classification have not been critiqued cladistically, we believe his work offers a more realistic starting point for reevaluating the composition and relationships of callionymid genera. The new species agrees with Nakabo’s new genus Neosynchiropus, but as noted by Fricke (2002), Neosynchiropus Nakabo is unavailable as it is preoccupied by Neosynchiropus Nalbant (1980). However, the type species of Nalbant’s genus, N. bacescuii Nalbant, was included in Neosynchiropus by Nakabo—as N. marmoratus (Peters, 1855), a senior synonym (Fricke 2002)—and agrees with his definition of the genus. Therefore, the two nominal genera are synonymous if Nakabo’s classification is accepted. By contrast, however, Fricke (2002: 7) divided species in Nakabo’s Neosynchiropus among two separate subgenera of Synchiropus: Neosynchiropus for species with branched anal-fin rays, and an undescribed subgenus (“Synchiropus (subgen. 1)”) for species with unbranched anal-fin rays. The latter subgenus was recently described by Fricke (2016) as Acommissura Fricke. Although we assign the new species to Synchiropus, we also acknowledge that Synchiropus sensu Fricke is unlikely to be monophyletic. We