Pseudophoxinus sp.

Freyhof, JÖrg, Yoğurtçuoğlu, Baran, Jouladeh-Roudbar, Arash & Kaya, Cüneyt, 2025, Handbook of Freshwater Fishes of West Asia, De Gruyter : 389-390

Pseudophoxinus sp.

Common name. Jordan spring minnow.

Diagnosis. The characters distinguishing this species from other Pseudophoxinus have yet to be worked out.

Distribution. Jordan drainage in Lebanon, Jordan and Israel.

Habitat. Springs, streams, and rivers, usually with clear water and dense vegetation. Also, found in littoral zone of Lake Kinneret.

Biology. Spawns February–April.

Conservation status. NE; due to very limited knowledge of this species.

Further reading. Goren 1974 (distribution).

Lake Karataş in Central Anatolia was once a major habitat of Pseudophoxinus burduricus . Recently it has dried out.

The lost River Qweiq. The Qweiq, also known as the Qweik, Quweiq, Kwaik, Kueik, Coic, Chalos, Belos, or Aleppo, was a river in the northern Levant. It had (and still has) sources in Türkiye and flowed through Aleppo, ending in a saltpan in Syria. Aleppo was an important city for early explorers and naturalists, and as a result, numerous freshwater fishes were collected for study by Russell, Linnaeus, Heckel, and others. The Qweiq was a tributary of the Euphrates, and it was not until the Holocene that this contact was broken and in the Qweiq became an endorheic basin. In the 19 th century, the Qweiq was still a large river, and fish species such as Luciobarbus esocinus existed there. It supported the Syrian city of Aleppo for centuries with water. The Qweiq dried out successively in the 20 th century. It has completely vanished from Syria, and only in Türkiye, two very small headwater streams remain, with a reservoir holding water for irrigation. Syrian farmers now pump their waters from deep layers, independent of the surface waters of the Qweiq. In addition, Aleppo constructed a canal for the Euphrates to flush out the sewage from the city. The middle Orontes was a tributary of the Qweiq, until the early Pleistocene. At that time, the Qweiq lost contact with the Orontes but continued to flow to the Euphrates. The connection between the Qweiq and the Orontes had been closed approximately 2.0–1.5 million years ago, and most freshwater fishes in the Qweiq are well differentiated from their closest relatives in the Orontes. However, some freshwater fishes in the Qweiq are closely related to those of the Orontes, suggesting that there must have been secondary connections much later. Pseudophoxinus zeregi and Capoeta damascina are widely distributed in the Orontes in the Qweiq. Similarly, Garra variabilis exhibits identical mitochondrial DNA haplotypes between the Qweiq and the Orontes, except those from the Euphrates, which show considerable differences. Furthermore, the mitochondrial DNA bodies of Oxynoemacheilus namiri from the Orontes have been identified in O. tigris from the Qweiq, indicating introgression. These close relationships are most likely due to Holocene contact between the middle sector of the Orontes and the Qweiq, which was interrupted by basaltic outflows south of Aleppo.

Sünnep east of Kilis, Türkiye, one of the small streams remaining from the Qweiq.

Copernicus Service information 2024.