Luciobarbus

Luciobarbus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Cyprinidae
Subfamily: Barbinae
Genus: Luciobarbus (disputed)
Heckel, 1843
Diversity
15 species (but see text)

Luciobarbus is a somewhat disputed genus of ray-finned fishes in the family Cyprinidae. Its species are mainly found around the Mediterranean region. Its type species is the Mangar (L. esocinus), for which the genus was established by Heckel in 1843. The type species' scientific name essentially means "pike-like pike-barbel" (after the Northern Pike, Esox lucius), though a more aliteral translation would be "pike-like wolf-barbel".

Systematics

Like many other cyprinids, the present genus was long included in Barbus. It appears to be a very close relative of the typical barbels – which include that genus' type species, the Common Barbel (B. barbus) –, and may well warrant inclusion in Barbus. In fact, many modern authors prefer to consider it a subgenus instead. It is, moreover, not entirely clear what species to place in Luciobarbus if it is deemed valid. The IUCN argues for a rather inclusive circumscription, while for example FishBase recognizes far fewer species. The FishBase circumscription is not correct, however, as it does not include the type species. Nonwithstanding the taxonomy and systematics of this ill-defined assemblage, their closest living relative is probably the Dalmatian Barbelgudgeon (Aulopyge huegelii).[1]

Species

Following Fishbase the genus contains:

Footnotes

  1. ^ de Graaf et al. (2007), Almodóvar et al. (2008), FishBase [2009], IUCN (2009)

References