A new species of the genus Capoeta Valenciennes, 1842 from the Caspian Sea basin in Iran (Teleostei, Cyprinidae).

Arash Jouladeh Roudbar,Ignacio Doadrio,Hamid Reza Ghanavi,Soheil Eagderi

doi:10.3897/zookeys.682.12670

Abstract

A new species of algae-scraping cyprinid of the genus Capoeta Valenciennes, 1842 is described from the Kheyroud River, located in the southern part of the Caspian Sea basin in Iran. The species differs from other members of this genus by a combination of the following characters: one pair of barbels; predorsal length equal to postdorsal length; maxillary barbel slightly smaller than eye’s horizontal diameter and reach to posterior margin of orbit; intranasal length slightly shorter than snout length; lateral line with 46–54 scales; 7–9 scales between dorsal-fin origin and lateral line, and 6–7 scales between anal-fin origin and lateral line.

Highlights

Cyprinid fishes of the genus Capoeta Valenciennes, 1842 have a wide distribution throughout western Asia from Anatolia to the Levant, Transcaucasia, the Tigris and Euphrates basins, Turkmenistan, and northern Afghanistan (Bănărescu 1999; Levin et al 2012; Ghanavi et al 2016; Jouladeh-Roudbar et al 2016)
The main goal of this work is to study morphologically the populations of the collected Capoeta specimens from the southern Caspian Sea basin, north of Iran, previously assigned to C. gracilis, and to compare them with the remaining species of this genus from Iran, and based on differences found, they are described as a new species
150 specimens of the genus Capoeta were collected by electrofishing at 14 sites covering most of its distribution area in southern Caspian Basin (Figure 1, Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Cyprinid fishes of the genus Capoeta Valenciennes, 1842 have a wide distribution throughout western Asia from Anatolia to the Levant, Transcaucasia, the Tigris and Euphrates basins, Turkmenistan, and northern Afghanistan (Bănărescu 1999; Levin et al 2012; Ghanavi et al 2016; Jouladeh-Roudbar et al 2016) This genus has at least 28 species, of which the following 15 species are present in Iran: Capoeta aculeata (Valenciennes, 1844); C. alborzensis Jouladeh-Roudbar, Eagderi, Ghanavi & Doadrio, 2016; C. anamisensis Zareian, Esmaeili & Freyhof, 2016; C. barroisi Lortet, 1894; C. buhsei Kessler, 1877; C. capoeta (Güldenstaedt, 1773); C. coadi Alwan, Zareian, & Esmaeili, 2016; C. damascina (Valenciennes, 1842); C. fusca Nikolskii, 1897; Capoeta gracilis (Keyserling, 1861); C. heratensis (Keyserling, 1861); C. mandica Bianco & Bănărescu, 1982; C. saadii (Heckel, 1847), C. trutta (Heckel, 1843), and C. umbla (Heckel, 1843) (Jouladeh-Roudbar et al 2015a,b; Alwan et al 2016; Zareian et al 2016; Jouladeh-Roudbar et al 2016). The dorsal fin is short with the last unbranched ray thickened, and has serrations posteriorly (serrations sometimes reduced to absent)

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