Paraschistura turcomana (Nikolskii, 1947)

Jouladeh-Roudbar, Arash, Ghanavi, Hamid Reza & Doadrio, Ignacio, 2020, Fig. 4 in Fig. 4 in Fig. 3 in Fig. 21. Sesarmops mora n in Paralbunea dayriti, Zoological Studies 59 (21), pp. 1-303 : 204-205

Paraschistura turcomana (Nikolskii, 1947) – Native ( Fig. 380)

Nemacheilus kessleri turcomanus Nikolskii [G. V.] 1947: 32; Type locality: Kushka River near town of Kushka, Murgab River basin, Turkmenistan. Syntypes: ZMMU P–5734 (3), P-5735 (1).

Common name: Pr: Loch-e Torkamani, Sagmahi-e Torkamani, En: Turkmen Loach.

Diagnosis: Colour pattern consisting of vague dark brown spots on flank, tending posteriorly to form transverse bars in both small and large specimens in life and preserved, deeper body and caudal, 7 branched rays in dorsal fin, and incomplete lateral line.

Meristic characters: D: 7, A: 5, P: 7–9, V: 6–7, LL: incomplete, reaching to a point slightly in front of dorsal fin origin or below dorsal fin base, SC: naked, DP: small and pointed, PA: present, SOG: absent.

Distribution: Hari basin ( Fig. 381). Found in Kalat, Hari, Akhlamad and Nobarhar Rivers.

Taxonomy: Coad (1995) placed turcomana in Noemacheilus kessleri as subspecies, Kottelat (2012) regard as full species and transferred to Paraschistura . Freyhof et al. (2015) deduced that this species is a synonym of P. turcmenica but Mousavi-Sabet et al. (2015) rejected this decision. Morphological characters of this species, not diagnostic and most of them overlap with P. turcomanica so we suggest the validity of this species examined by molecular markers.

Conservation: IUCN: Not Evaluated, PC: Data Deficient. It is distributed in Turkmenistan, Iran and probably in Afghanistan. The information concerning its distribution range and population size is incomplete, and therefore we did not make an assessment.