Diversity of Barbinae fishes in southern Europe with description of a new genus and a new species (Cyprinidae)

Abstract

The subfamily Barbinae from southern Europe includes 17 fish species: 8 in the genus Barbus s.str. and nine in the new genus Messinobarbus. According to their recurrent, preferential habitat European barbs can be divided in three groups: a) large‐sized, warm‐water adapted species (i.e., “bocagei‐barbus”; group) composed of eleven species; b) medium‐sized, moderately cold‐water adapted (i.e., “meridionalis”; group) comprised of four allopatric species; und c) medium‐sized, warm‐water adapted, moderately riverine or lacustrine species (i.e., "cyclolepis”; group) with two species. Major Barbinae diversity occurs on the Iberian Peninsula with eight species and in Greece with five species. Riverine species tend to form paired complexs: each generally consisting of a lacustrine and a moderately riverine form in each basin. The. current ecological segregation or allopatry between riverine species suggests that they were derived from precocial (pedoge‐netic) populations of a lacustrine (especially those from the Up‐per‐Aegen Sea) Barbinae species during sequential waves of colonisation that occurred during glacial melting periods throughout the Pleistocene. The progressive reduction of a dorsal fin spine may coincide with the vicariant formation of these species. Species which display well developed horny tubercles on the snout are included in a new genus, Messinibarbus, comprised of nine endemic species (seven on Iberian Peninsula and two in western Greece). A new species, Messinobarbus carottae, previously misidentified as B. graecus, is described from Lake Yliki in Beothia, Greece.

Key words:

• Barbinae
• Southern Europe
• Zoogeography
• Taxonomy
• Messinobarbus new genus
• Messinobarbus carottae new species