Cobitis battalgilae Băcescu, 1962

Freyhof, Jörg, Bayçelebi, Esra & Geiger, Matthias, 2018, Review of the genus Cobitis in the Middle East, with the description of eight new species (Teleostei: Cobitidae), Zootaxa 4535 (1), pp. 1-75 : 11-13

Cobitis battalgilae Băcescu, 1962

( Fig. 5–6 )

Cobitis battalgilae Băcescu, 1962b: 436 , 437, fig. 1B (type locality: Turkey: Beyşehir Lake).

Material examined. ZMH 4744 , lectotype, 69 mm SL ; ZMH 4745 , 3 , 52–93 mm SL; Turkey: Beyşehir Lake .— FSJF 2308 , 1 , 73 mm SL ; FSJF 2600 , 14 , 56–137 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: spring Eflatun Pınarı about 4 km west of Sadıkhacı , 37.825 31.674 .— FSJF 2524 , 19 , 53–92 mm SL; Turkey: Isparta prov.: stream Çeltek about 9 km south of Şarkikaraağac , 38.012 31.315 .— FSJF 3117 , 4 , 66–103 mm SL; Turkey: Antalya prov.: Manavgat River below Oymapınar dam, 36.896 31.527 .

Material used in molecular genetic analysis. FSJF DNA-1108 ; Turkey: Konya prov.: spring Eflatun Pınarı about 4 km west of Sadıkhacı , 37.825 31.674. (GenBank accession numbers: KJ 552817 , KJ 552902 ) .— FSJF DNA- 1082 ; Turkey: Isparta prov.: stream Çeltek about 9 km south of Şarkikaraağac , 38.012 31.315. (GenBank accession numbers: KJ 553142 , KJ552914 , KJ 552834 ) .— FSJF DNA-1657 ; Turkey: Antalya prov.: Manavgat River below Oymapınar dam, 36.896 31.527. (GenBank accession numbers: KJ 553119 , KJ 552796 ) .

Diagnosis. Cobiti s battalgilae is distinguished from other Cobitis species in the Asian Mediterranean Sea basin and the endorheic basins in Central Anatolia by a combination of characters, none of them unique. Female C. battalgilae larger than 90 mm SL are distinguished from female C. simplicispina of the same size by the blotches in Z4 being usually dissociated, often forming a band or an open field of small, irregularly-shaped blotches and spots (vs. blotches in Z4 not dissociated, often fused, forming short or longer stripes) and the blotches in Z 4 in the male C. battalgilae not forming stripes (vs. usually fused into a short or longer stripe).

Distribution. Cobiti s battalgilae is found in the Lake Beyşehir basin, where it was found in the stream Çeltek in the very north and in the spring Eflatun Pınarı in the east of Lake Beyşehir (and maybe elsewhere). It is also found below the Apa Reservoir ( Perdices et. al. 2018), in the river that flows out of Lake Suğla and ends in the Konya plains, as well as in the Manavgat River that flows to the Gulf of Antalya.

Remarks. The distribution area of C. battalgilae reflects well the hydrological connections of Lake Beyşehir, which seasonally flow over to Lake Suğla from which parts of the water flows to the Konya plain and parts of the water flow into the Limestone Mountains supporting springs in the Manavgat River drainage through underground connections. Beside C. battalgilae , other species known from the Lake Beyşehir basin occur in the Manavgat River drainage as Pseudophoxinus battalgilae , Squalius anatolicus and Oxynoemacheilus attili . On the other hand, most species known from Lake Beyşehir as Cobitis bilseli , Capoeta maurici , Garra kemali , Pseudophoxinus anatolicus , P. hettitorum , Chondrostoma beyshehirense , Aphanius cf. iconii and others have never been found in the Manavgat River drainage.

The colour pattern in Cobitis is an important complex of characters useful to identify species. The colour pattern is especially variable within the populations of C. battalgilae . Some individuals, usually males smaller than 70 mm SL, lack the pigmentation in Z3 and there is one series of squarish blotches in Z4. Other individuals have the Z3 partly or fully pigmented and the blotches in Z4 are vertically elongate, often small and densely set or some or all blotches in Z4 are divided in 2 or more elements resulting in a colour pattern of two rows of blotches (similar to C. pirii , see below). In other individuals, Z4 is dissociated into a band of small, irregularly-shaped blotches and spots or the spots and blotches are dispersed on the flank forming an open field of blotches and spots. This large variability in the colour pattern in C. battalgilae makes it very difficult to identify this species, especially if only few individuals are available. Molecular characters help in this and other cases.

Băcescu (1962:436) described C battalgilae in a footnote: "C'est là l'espèce la plus répandue, semble-t-il de toute l' Anatolie ( C. simplicispina ); grâce au matériel aimablement mis à notre disposition par MM. les Professeurs Curt Kosswig (Zool. Inst. u. Museum, Hambourg) et E. Tortonese (Musee Giace. Doria, Genes), nous avons pu établir sa présence dans les lacs: Beysechir (2.4.1953) en compagnie de C. battalgilae n. sp. ( Fig. 1 , B); Gölhisar (7.9.1957); Tüz-Gölü et Cihanbeyli (2.8.1951). etc.; nous y reviendrons, dans une étude spéciale sur les, Cobitis d'Anatolie [This is the most widespread species, it seems, of all Anatolia ( C. simplicispina ); thanks to the material (…), we were able to establish its presence in the lakes: Beyşehir (2.4.1953) together with C. battalgilae n. sp. ( Fig. 1 , B); Gölhisar (7.9.1957); Tüz-Gölü and Cihanbeyli (2.8.1951). etc.; we will come back to this in a special study on Anatolian Cobitis .]. Basically, Băcescu (1962) describes the distribution of C. simplicispina and just mentions, that it occurs together with C. battalgilae in Lake Beyşehir. It is clear, that Băcescu (1962) reported C. battalgilae from Lake Beyşehir and he reports C. simplicispina also from Lakes Gölhisar and Tuz and from Cihanbeyli, but did not mention C. battalgilae from there. However, the caption of Fig. 1B says the figured specimen is C. battalgilae from Gölhisar. This may mean that he really had material of his C. battalgilae from both Beyşehir and Gölhisar, or that he messed the data. Wilkens & Dohse (1993) list four syntypes (ZMH 4745) and a holotype (ZMH 4744) of C. battalgilae from Beyşehir and other syntypes might exist elsewhere, as Erk'akan et al. (1999:21) list MINB (uncat) as a paratype of C. battalgilae from Gölhisar.

The specimen mentioned as holotype by Wilkens & Dohse (1993) in fact is a syntype, since Băcescu (1962) did not designate a holotype. Subsequently listing a specimen as " holotype " does not make it a holotype. In addition, listing it erroneously as " holotype " does not constitute a lectotype designation ( ICZN 1999: Article 74.5). However, a lectotype designation is needed as two species are involved. These are populations from Lake Beyşehir, to which the syntypes in ZMH belong to and the species in Gölhisar, which we identify as C. phrygica . To clear the situation, we designate ZMH 4744 ( Fig. 5 ) as lectotype. This is the individual already selected as ‘holotype’ by Wilkens & Dohse (1993). This nomenclatural act stabilises the application of the name to Lake Beyşehir population.

Băcescu (1962) described the species as Cobitis battalgili . As Fahire Battalgil was a woman, the name should have been formed as C. battalgilae ( ICZN 1999: Article 31.1.2.). This incorrect original spelling of an inadvertent error has to be corrected ( ICZN 1999: Article 32.5.) and therefore, we use C. battalgilae as the name of the species.

Molecular data shown in Fig. 1 confirmed previous phylogenetic relationships ( Geiger et al. (2014) and Perdices et al. (2018) and place C. battalgilae in the C. simplicispina species group ( C. battalgilae , C. bilseli , C. dorademiri , C. joergbohleni , C. phrygica , C. pirii , C. simplicispina , C. sipahilerae , C. turcica ). Based on DNA barcoding it is well separated from all other included Cobitis and by a minimum K2P distance of 1.2% to C. turcica . Cobitis battalgilae groups with the latter species in the PTP grouping and with even more species based on the mPTP results. This situation was not observed in the molecular study by Perdices et al. (2018). See below for details to distinguish C. battalgilae from other species in the C. simplicispina species group and other Cobitis species found in the Asian Mediterranean Sea basin.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Maximum likelihood estimation of the phylogenetic relationships based on the mitochondrial COI barcode region (TN93 model, discrete Gamma distribution for rate differences with 3 categories +G parameter = 0.3792. Nucleotide positions with less than 95% site coverage were eliminated, resulting in 590 analysed positions. Numbers of major nodes indicate bootstrap values from 1000 pseudoreplicates from the ML, NJ and MP method. A star denotes highest possible support from all three methods. Solid bars right to the specimen labels indicate species delimitation results from PTP followed by the results of the mPTP approach as dashed bars. Except to the outgroups and the branch to the right part of the figure, the tree is drawn to scale with branch lengths depicting number of substitutions per site.

FIGURE 5. Cobitis battalgilae, ZMH 4744, lectotype, 69 mm SL; Turkey: Beyşehir Lake.

FIGURE 6. Cobitis battalgilae, FSJF 2600, male, 67 mm SL; male, 68 mm SL; female, 135 mm SL; Turkey: spring Eflatun Pınarı; FSJF 3117, female, 98 mm SL; Turkey: Manavgat River.