Barbonymus

Barbonymus
Tinfoil Barb, (B. schwanenfeldii)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Cyprinidae
Genus: Barbonymus
Kottelat, 1999
Type species
Barbus schwanenfeldii
Bleeker, 1853

Barbonymus is a ray-finned fish genus in the family Cyprinidae, containing some barb species. The genus was only established in 1999, with the Tinfoil Barb (B. schwanenfeldii) as type species; thus, these fish are sometimes collectively called tinfoils. The new genus was established in recognition of the fact that some large Asian "barbs", formerly rather indiscriminately lumped in Barbus (typical barbels and relatives), Barbodes (barb-like carps) and Puntius (spotted barbs), form a distinct evolutionary lineage.

The Java Barb (B. gonionotus) might not actually belong in this genus

They are actually very close relatives of the Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio). Even though only five species are included at present, it is not certain whether these form a monophyletic lineage; the Java Barb (B. gonionotus) for example seems to be very close indeed to Cyclocheilichthys, which unites a number of barb-like "carps". Past hybridization is known widely in Cyprinidae, and confounds molecular and other cladistic studies relying on a single source of data. Altogether the delimitation of the typical carps and allied genera remains still not fully solved.[1]

Species

There are currently 10 recognized species in this genus:[2][3]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ de Graaf et al. (2007)
  2. ↑ Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2013). Species of Barbonymus in FishBase. October 2013 version.
  3. ↑ Kottelat, M. (2013): The Fishes of the Inland Waters of Southeast Asia: A Catalogue and Core Bibliography of the Fishes Known to Occur in Freshwaters, Mangroves and Estuaries. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 2013, Supplement No. 27: 1–663.

References

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