Oxynoemacheilus eregliensis ( Bănărescu & Nalbant 1978 )

Yoğurtçuoğlu, Baran, Kaya, Cüneyt & Freyhof, Jörg, 2022, Revision of the Oxynoemacheilus angorae group with the description of two new species (Teleostei: Nemacheilidae), Zootaxa 5133 (4), pp. 451-485 : 460-463

Oxynoemacheilus eregliensis ( Bănărescu & Nalbant 1978)

( Figs. 5–6 )

Orthrias angorae eregliensis Bănărescu & Nalbant in Bănărescu, Nalbant & Balik 1978:258, Fig. 1 (type locality: Eregli, southwestern central Turkey.)

Oxynoemacheilus atili Erk’akan 2012:99, Figs. 3–4 (type locality: Eflatun pinari-Beysehir Lake, 37°49’30.95”N, 31°40’29.08”E, Turkey) .

Material examined. Holotype, ZMH 1921 , 64 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: Ereğli ;— Paratypes, ZMH 5637 , 4 , 48–53 mm SL; same data as holotype .— FFR 15598, 2 , 52–60 ; FFR 15599, 14, 45–78 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: Eflatun Pınarı 4 km west to Sadıkhacı , 37.8253 31.6751 .— FFR 15600, 1 , 40 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: Kuğulu pond at Seydişehir , 37.3905 31.8434 .— FFR 15611, 26 , 42–59 mm SL; Turkey: Isparta prov.: Eylikler, 3 km north of Lake Beyşehir , 37.7149 31.7158 .— FFR 15612, 15 , 39–63 mm SL; Turkey: Isparta prov.: Aslandoğmuş spring at Aslandoğmuş , 38.1083 31.4600 .— FSJF 1954 , 17 , 39–60 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: Sarıöz stream at Isaköy, 4 km south of Sariköy , 37.7485 31.7803 .— FSJF 2003 , 5 , 33–48 mm SL; Turkey: Karaman prov.: Ibdala stream at road from Karaman to Yeşildere , 37.1526 33.4360 .— FSJF 2267 , 3 , 58–70 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: Eflatun Pınarı at Sadıkhacı , 37.8251 31.6743 .— FSJF 2326 , 4 , 37–59 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: Kuşluca stream at Kıreli, at road from Şarkikaraağaç to Beyşehir , 37.8456 31.6157 .— FSJF 2519 , 7 , 48–53 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: Sarıçay stream 2 km north of Beyşehir , 37.7154 31.7084 .— FSJF 3099 , 6 , 54–65 mm SL; Turkey: Konya prov.: Büyükçay stream at Yeşilbağ, south of Lake Beyşehir , 37.5301 31.4935 .— FSJF 3116 , 9 , 49–71 mm SL; Turkey: Antalya prov.: Manavgat River below Oymapınar dam, 36.8986 31.5271 .

Material used in molecular genetic analysis. FSJF-DNA 32 ; Turkey: Karaman prov.: Ibdala stream at road from Karaman to Yeşildere , 37.1526 33.4360 (GenBank accession numbers: ON123687 , ON123688 , ON123689 ) .

Additional distribution records. Erk’akan 2012: 37.1537 33.5258; Geiger et al. 2014: 37.9900 31.9900; Küçük et al. 2020: 37.5110 31.3101, 37.5535 31.3210; unpublished records: 37.8836 31.8264, 37.6839 31.7155; 37.1369 33.1708, 37.5272 33.9047.

Diagnosis. Oxynoemacheilus eregliensis is distinguished from other species of the O. angorae group by a combination of characters, none of them unique. It is distinguished from O. anatolicus and O. angorae by having the pre-dorsal back with blotches or a dark-brown, fine, mottled pattern, without saddles (vs. pre-dorsal back usually with 3–4 saddles), few isolated scales on the flank in front of the dorsal-fin origin (vs. flank completely covered by scales), and the caudal peduncle depth 1.5–1.9 times in its length (vs. 1.3–1.6 in O. anatolicus ). Oxynoemacheilus eregliensis is further distinguished by having the flank usually with large, isolated, irregularly set and shaped blotches forming a marbled pattern (vs. flank with small and confluent, regularly set and shaped blotches and spots forming a marbled or mottled pattern in O. anatolicus , flank with a midlateral series of blotches usually fused to a stripe in O. angorae ), and no depigmented stripe along the anterior part of the lateral line (vs. usually present in O. angorae ).

Distribution. Oxynoemacheilus eregliensis is widespread in the Manavgat River (Mediterranean basin) and endorheic Karaman, Ereğli, Lake Beyşehir and Suğla basins in Central Anatolia. The species has not been found since more than 20 years at its type locality (Ereğli) as Ereğli marshes dried out.

Remarks. Erk’akan (2012) described O. atili from Eflatun Pınarı in Lake Beyşehir basin. In the original description, Erk’akan (2012) compared O. atili not with the type materials of O. eregliensis (ZMH 1921, ZMH 5637) or with fish from Ereğli, but with loaches from the stream Yeşildere (Karaman), which is situated west of Ereğli. Our COI data place the loaches from Yeşildere in the same molecular group as O. atili from Beyşehir basin. Indeed, the fishes previously recognised as O. atili or O. eregliensis are grouped in two molecular clusters: those from Beyşehir and Yeşildere are together in one cluster, while those from other parts of Tuz basin are in the second cluster. Oxynoemacheilus populations from Lake Tuz basin are distinguished from those from Beyşehir and Yeşildere by a minimum K2P distance of 1.6%. Examination of fresh material collected from the type locality of O. atili as well as five other populations from Lake Beyşehir basin ( Fig. 5 ) does not reveal any characters to distinguish O. atili from the types of O. eregliensis ( Fig. 6 ). Therefore, we treat O. atili as a synonym of O. eregliensis . We found characters distinguishing O. eregliensis (Ereğli, Beyşehir, Suğla, Manavgat, and Yeşildere) from populations from Lake Tuz basin (Cihanbeyli, Gölyazı, Melendiz, and Samsam). Therefore, we described these populations below as a new species, O. axylos .

Figures

FIGURE 1. Maximum likelihood estimation of the phylogenetic relationships based on the mitochondrial DNA barcode region (GTR model, discrete Gamma distribution for rate differences with 5 categories (+G, parameter = 0.4421). Nucleotide positions with less than 98% site coverage were eliminated, resulting in 502 analysed positions.Numbers of major nodes indicate bootstrap values from 1000 pseudoreplicates from the ML method. The tree is drawn to scale with branch lengths depicting number of substitutions per site. Solid bars right to the specimen labels indicate species delimitation results from PTP followed by the results of the mPTP approach as dashed bars.

FIGURE 3. Oxynoemacheilus anatolicus, FFR 15590, 60 mm SL; stream flowing to Karamanlı reservoir.

FIGURE 4. Oxynoemacheilus angorae, from top: FSJF 2579, 65 mm SL; Battal stream; not preserved, about 60 mm SL, same place as FSJF 1939; Pürtek stream; FSJF 2878, 67 mm SL; Yıldız stream; FSJF 1939, 55 mm SL; Pürtek stream; not preserved, about 60 mm SL, same place as FSJF 2498; Bayındır stream.

FIGURE 5. Oxynoemacheilus eregliensis, from top: FFR 15612, 57 mm SL; Aslandoğmuş spring; FSJF 3116, 64 mm SL; Manavgat River; not preserved, about 60 mm SL, same data as FSJF 2326; stream at Kıreli; not preserved, about 70 mm SL, same place as FSJF 2267; Eflatun Pınarı; FSJF 2003, 48 mm SL; Ibdala stream.

FIGURE 6. Oxynoemacheilus eregliensis, from top: ZMH 1921, holotype, 64 mm SL; ZMH 5637, paratypes, 56 mm SL; 53 mm SL; 48 mm SL; 48 mm SL; Eregli.