Oxynoemacheilus cemali, a new species of stone loach (Teleostei: Nemacheilidae) from the Çoruh River drainage, Turkey

Abstract

Oxynoemacheilus cemali sp. nov. is described from the Çoruh River drainage in the eastern Black Sea basin. One molecular marker (coI), 25 morphometric and four meristic characters were analysed. Oxynoemacheilus cemali is distinguished from O. kosswigi, O. banarescui, O. samanticus and O. angorae in the Black Sea basin by having a suborbital groove in males, an axillary lobe at the pelvic‐fin base, no dorsal adipose crest on the caudal peduncle, a slightly‐forked caudal fin and 7–15 dark grey dorsal saddles. Morever, Oxynoemacheilus cemali is distinguished by commonly having 9–15 irregularly‐shaped dark‐grey bars on the flank posterior to the dorsal‐fin origin or, rarely having a mottled pattern or 4–6 irregularly shaped dark‐grey bars on the flank posterior to the dorsal‐fin origin. Oxynoemacheilus cemali is also distinguished from the closely related species O. araxensis and O. cyri, distributed outside the Black Sea basin, by having 15 and 31 diagnostic nucleotide substitutions in the coI barcode region, respectively.

Towards retrieving the Promethean treasure: a first molecular assessment of the freshwater fish diversity of Georgia

“…Loaches of the genus Oxynoemacheilus from the Black Sea basin have recently been studied including the description of a new species – O. cemali – from the Coruh river drainage ( Turan et al 2019 ). The Coruh enters the Black Sea near Batumi in Georgia about 70 km south of the Rioni River mouth.…”

“…The Coruh enters the Black Sea near Batumi in Georgia about 70 km south of the Rioni River mouth. We therefore compared the DNA barcodes made available by Turan et al (2019) to the newly-generated COI sequences, also to test whether there is molecular support for the Rioni loach belonging to O. cemali .…”

“…The tree is drawn to scale, with branch lengths measured in the number of substitutions per site. The analysis includes 45 nucleotide sequences taken from Turan et al (2019) (for asterisked species, NCBI GenBank accession numbers are given in Suppl. material 3 ) of this study.…”

Status of Endemic Freshwater Fish Fauna Inhabiting Major Lakes of Turkey under the Threats of Climate Change and Anthropogenic Disturbances: A Review

“…With regard to Cobitidae, the evolution of the Cobitis genus in Anatolia started in the Miocene and led to the formation of a large number of local lineages of this group [28]; to date, 28 species have been reported in Turkey [28], but the taxonomy of the genus is under continuous revision. Among the Nemacheilidae, Oxynoemacheilus is the largest genus and in Turkey has a great diversity, with 42 reported species from inland waters (26 endemics) [52][53][54][55]. Southwestern Anatolia is also an important biodiversity hotspot for the genus Knipowitschia (Gobiidae), with four of the five recorded species being endemic to Turkey (K. byblisia, K. caunosi, K. mermere, and K. ricasoli) and reported to occur only in isolated habitats [27,35,56] (Figure 2).…”

Oxynoemacheilus angorae (Steindachner, 1897) Türünün Perşembe Yaylası Menderesleri Ordu-Türkiye’den İlk Kaydı

“…This family is represented in 49 species belonging to six genera such as Turcinoemacheilus, Paracobitis, Seminemacheilus, Barbatula, Schistura, and Oxynoemacheilus in Turkish waters. (Kaya et al, 2016;Çiçek et al, 2018;Turan et al, 2019). Oxynoemacheilus is the most common species in six genera of the Nemacheilidae family from Turkey, and this genus is represented by 41 species (Çiçek et al, 2019).…”