Longfin loaches
Longfin loaches | ||||||||||||
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Vaillantella euepiptera from the first description by Léon Vaillant . |
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name of the family | ||||||||||||
Vaillantellidae | ||||||||||||
Nalbant & Banarescu , 1977 | ||||||||||||
Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
Vaillantella | ||||||||||||
Fowler , 1905 |
The long-fin loaches ( Vaillantella ) are a genus of the loach- like (Cobitoidea) and the only genus of the monotypical family Vaillantellidae. The fish live in running waters on the Malay Peninsula , Sumatra and Kalimantan .
features
The Vaillantella species are the morphologically most unusual loaches. The approximately twelve centimeters long freshwater fish resemble, with their elongated shape, the thorny eyes ( pangio ), but have an unusually long dorsal fin (name), which is supported by 53 to 73 branched fin rays. The largest number of dorsal fin rays from another loach-like species is found in Enobarbus maculatus , which has 28 fin rays. With Vaillantella , the dorsal fin begins in the first third of the body and extends to the caudal fin. The lateral line is complete, the caudal fin forked , as in the clown loaches.
Systematics
The systematic position of the long-fin loaches was controversial for a long time. They were alternately assigned to the brook loaches , the clown loaches or the "real" loaches . In the latter case also within a separate subfamily (Vaillantellinae).
Recently, on the basis of molecular genetic investigations, they have even been placed in their own family (now Vaillantellidae) as sister groups of the clade of wolffish (Cobitidae), fin suckers (Balitoridae), "sturdy mouths" (Ellopostomatidae) and brook loaches (Nemacheilidae).
The systematic position is illustrated by the following cladogram (after Bohlen & Šlechtová, 2009, and Chen et al., 2009):
Carp-like (Cypriniformes) |
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species
There are three types, of which the first two are only known from one or three finds.
- Vaillantella cinnamomea Kottelat , 1994
- Vaillantella euepiptera ( Vaillant , 1902)
- Vaillantella maassi Weber & de Beaufort , 1912
literature
- Jörg Bohlen , Vendula Šlechtová : Phylogenetic position of the fish genus Ellopostoma (Teleostei: Cypriniformes) using molecular genetic data. Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters, 20 (2), 2009, pp. 157-162 ( online PDF, 1.8 MB ).
- 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. In: Journal of Fish Biology, 75 (9), 2009, pp. 2197-2208. doi : 10.1111 / j.1095-8649.2009.02398.x
- Teodor T. Nalbant , Petre Mihai Bănărescu : Vaillantellinae, A New Subfamily Of Cobitidae (Pisces, Cypriniformes). In: Zoologische Mededelingen , 52 (8), 1977, pp. 99-105 ( online PDF, 863 kB ).
- Vendula Šlechtová, Jörg Bohlen, Heok Hui Tan : Families of Cobitoidea (Teleostei; Cypriniformes) as revealed from nuclear genetic data and the position of the mysterious genera Barbucca , Psilorhynchus , Serpenticobitis and Vaillantella . In: Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution , 44 (3), 2007, pp. 1358-1365
Web links
- Longfin loaches on Fishbase.org (English)