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Caspian Spined Loach Sabanejewia caspia: Well-Known but Practically Unexplored Species of the Cobitidae Family: Peculiarities of Morphology, Karyotype, Distribution, and Postulated Phylogenetic Links

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Abstract

An illustrated description of the features of the external morphology, coloration (taking into account variability), the structure of the cranium, and the karyotype of the Caspian spined loach Sabanejewia caspia are presented. As a result of a comparative analysis based on the study of collections for closely related species and literature data, a new species diagnosis of S. caspia was compiled, which allows one to avoid erroneous species identification. Confirmed data on species distribution are presented. The current state of the problem of assessing the phylogenetic relationships of S. caspia and other Sabanejewia species is discussed. Doubts about the correctness of attribution of the AU059338 and AU059339 Genbank haplotypes (widely used in phylogenetics of Cobitidae) to the species S. caucasica are substantiated.

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Notes

  1. It was earlier reported about the erroneous assignment to the S. caspia of a series of samples of the Khvalyn spined loach from the collection of ZMMU and the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Vasil’eva and Vasil’ev, 2012).

  2. It should be noted that these fish were never listed in the ZMMU collection, which is erroneously indicated on the website of the California Academy of Sciences (Eschmeyer et al., 2018).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zoological Museum, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

    E. D. Vasil’ieva

  2. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    V. P. Vasil’ev

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  1. E. D. Vasil’ieva
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Translated by D. Martynova

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Vasil’ieva, E.D., Vasil’ev, V.P. Caspian Spined Loach Sabanejewia caspia: Well-Known but Practically Unexplored Species of the Cobitidae Family: Peculiarities of Morphology, Karyotype, Distribution, and Postulated Phylogenetic Links. J. Ichthyol. 59, 144–159 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0032945219020206

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