Clupeonella cultriventris (Nordman, 1840)

Sayyadzadeh, Golnaz & Esmaeili, Hamid Reza, 2024, Freshwater lamprey and fishes of Iran: Reappraisal and updated checklist with a note on Eagderi et al. (2022), Zootaxa 5402 (1), pp. 1-99 : 12

12. Clupeonella cultriventris (Nordman, 1840)

Common name. Black Sea sprat

Taxonomy. Original description: Clupea cultriventris Nordman, 1840: 42 [Pont-Euxin (Black Sea); syntypes: MNHN 0000-3681 (3)] .

Revisions. Whitehead (1985: 52).

Illustrations. Kottelat & Freyhof (2007: 76, fig. as Clupeonella caspia ).

Distribution in Iran. —Distribution in River Basin: Caspian Sea.—Distribution in Ecoregions: 434-Kura-South Caspian Drainages, 450-Turan Plain, 452-Caspian Marine.

Status in Iran. [Native].—Rizeh kuli, Kilka-e-maamooli.—Listed in the previous checklists by Esmaeili et al. (2018); Jouladeh-Roudbar et al. (2020); as Clupeonella caspia and by Eagderi et al. (2022) as Clupeonella cultriventris .—Iran materials: None.

Conservation. —IUCN: LC.

Remarks. Clupeonella cultriventris is widespread along coasts of the Black and Caspian Seas, entering lower reaches of rivers. Based on unpublished data (see Kuljanishvili et al. 2020) including molecular and morphological studies they failed to distinguish the Caspian population ( C. caspia ) from the Black Sea population ( C. cultriventris ). Hoestlandt (1991) followed by Kottelat & Freyhof (2007) separate them largely based on the length of paired fins, a character that found to be very much overlapping in the materials examined by Kuljanishvili et al. (2020). Therefore, they treated C. caspia as a synonym of C. cultriventris .