Clown loaches

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Clown loaches
Loach (Chromobotia macracanthus)

Loach ( Chromobotia macracanthus )

Systematics
Cohort : Otomorpha
Sub-cohort : Ostariophysi
without rank: Otophysa
Order : Carp-like (Cypriniformes)
Subordination : Loach- like (Cobitoidei)
Family : Clown loaches
Scientific name
Botiidae
Berg , 1940

Loaches (Botiidae) are bottom-dwelling freshwater fish from the order of the carp-like (Cypriniformes). All loaches live in South and East Asia from India to China and Japan , as well as on Sumatra , Java and Kalimantan . Some species are popular aquarium fish.

features

They are barbel-like , small to medium-sized, elongated fish that are often brightly colored. In contrast to the wolffish (Cobitidae) their body is flattened laterally. They have two pairs of Rostral Bartels . The sideline on the head is conspicuous, the caudal fin deeply forked. In a skin pocket under each eye there is a thorn that can be folded out by muscle movements and locked with a bone joint. The mouth is below. The pharyngealia is covered with a row of teeth. Loach are 7.8 cm to half a meter long, depending on the species.

External system

The loaches were long considered subfamily Botiinae within the loach out. Recently, based on molecular genetic studies, they have been placed in their own family as a sister group of the common clade of Vaillantellidae , wolffish, fin suckers (Balitoridae), Ellopostomatidae and brook loaches (Nemacheilidae).

Zebra loach
( Botia striata )

The systematic position is illustrated by the following cladogram (after Bohlen & Šlechtová, 2009, and Chen et al., 2009):

  Carp-like (Cypriniformes)  

 ? Suckers (Catostomidae)


   

 Loaches  sensu lato  (Cobitoidea)  

 ? Suckers (Catostomidae)


   

 Sucking Loaches (Gyrinocheilidae)


   

 Clown loaches (Botiidae)


   

 Longfin loaches (Vaillantellidae)


   

 Loaches or loaches sensu stricto (Cobitidae)


   

 Fin Sucker (Balitoridae)


   

 "Malfunctioning mouths"  (Ellopostomatidae)


   

 Brook loaches (Nemacheilidae)










   

 Carp fish (Cyprinoidea)




Template: Klade / Maintenance / Style

Internal system

Examination of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA supports the family monophyly . So far almost 50 species in seven genera and two tribes have been described.

Dwarf loach
( Ambastaia sidthimunki )
Botia histrionica
Burmese loach
( Botia kubotai )
Syncrossus berdmorei
Yasuhikotakia modesta

literature

  • Maurice Kottelat : Botia kubotai , a new species of loach (Teleostei: Cobitidae) from the Ataran River basin (Myanmar), with comments on botiine nomenclature and diagnosis of a new genus. Zootaxa . Vol. 401, (January 9) 2004, pp. 1-18
  • Maurice Kottelat: Conspectus cobitidum: an inventory of the loaches of the world (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Cobitoidei) . The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, Supplementum No. 26, 2012, 199 pp. ( PDF ; 5.4 MB)
  • Richard L. Mayden, Kevin L. Tang, Robert M. Wood, Wei-Jen Chen, Mary K. Agnew, Kevin W. Conway, Lei Yang, Andrew M. Simons, Henry L. Bart, Phillip M. Harris, Junbing Li , Xuzhen Wang, Kenji Saitoh, Shunping He, Huanzhang Liu, Yiyu Chen, Mutsumi Nishida, Masaki Miya: Inferring the Tree of Life of the order Cypriniformes, the earth's most diverse clade of freshwater fishes: Implications of varied taxon and character sampling. Journal of Systematics and Evolution. Vol. 46, No. 3, 2008, pp. 424–438 ( PDF , 455 kB)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jörg Bohlen, Vendula Šlechtová: Phylogenetic position of the fish genus Ellopostoma (Teleostei: Cypriniformes) using molecular genetic data. Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. Vol. 20, No. 2, 2009, pp. 157–162 ( PDF ; 1.8 MB)
  2. ^ Wei-Jen Chen, V. Lheknim, Richard L. Mayden: Molecular phylogeny of the Cobitoidea (Teleostei: Cypriniformes) revisited: position of enigmatic loach Ellopostoma resolved with six nuclear genes. Journal of Fish Biology. Vol. 75, No. 9, 2009 pp. 2197-2208, doi : 10.1111 / j.1095-8649.2009.02398.x

Web links

Commons : Loaches  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files