[Ebook] 500 freshwater aquarium fish - Cyprinids

The family Cyprinidae is the largest of the exclusively freshwater families of fishes. With the possible exception of the freshwater/brackish/marine family, the Gobiidae, it is also the largest family of vertebrates. The family as we currently recognize it is deemed by some authorities to be artificially large. Not surprisingly, therefore, opinions vary as to how it should be subdivided. The following listing of subfamilies follows that of Nelson (1994).

Cyprininae (about 700 species). These fish usually (but not invariably) possess anterior and posterior barbels. For instance, while the three Carassius species (including the Goldfish, Carassius auratus) do not possess barbels, the Common Carp and, therefore, Koi (Cyphnus carpio), Barbus and relatives, as well as Labeo and Epalzeorhynchus (“Sharks” and Flying Foxes), and numerous other species do have barbels.
Gobioninae, which includes the European Gudgeon (Gobio gobio).
Rasborinae (= Danioninae), which 0 as the name implies – includes all the popular tropical aquarium rasboras and danios.
Acheilognathinae, which includes the amazing bitterlings (Rhodeus and Tanakia).
Leuciscinae, the intra-subfamilial relationships of which are, perhaps, debatable, but that—as things stand includes the minnows (Phoxinus), the Ide or Orfe (Leuciscus), the Roach (Rutilus), the Rudd (Scardinius), and the Tench (Tinca).
Cultrinae, consisting of Eastern Asian genera like Parabramis.
Alburninae, including the Bleak (Alburnus).
Psilorhynchinae, with two genera from Nepal, India, and parts of Myanmar (Burma): Psilorhynchoides and Psilorhynchus.

There are about 2,010 species in the family spread among some 210-220 genera in Eurasia, North America, and Africa. With such a high number of species and such wide distribution, it is to be expected that Cyprinids will exhibit great diversity of shape, size, and characteristics.

There are giant species, such as Catlocarpio siamensis from Thailand and Tor putitora, the Large-scaled Barb or Mahseer, from the Bhramaputra, in Eastern India, both of which are known to grow to lengths in excess of 8ft (2.5m). In contrast, the largest specimen of Danionella translucida (from Burma) so far found is a mere in (1.2cm) in length. Cyprinids have a protrusile, or extendible, mouth and jaws without teeth. However, they possess pharyngeal (“throat”) bones with teeth. They also exhibit a number of skull bone and muscle modifications, along with two pairs of mouth barbels (but not in all species) and a scaleless head. They lack an adipose (second dorsal) fin.

The difficulty with using these features to identify a fish as belonging to the family Cyprinidae is that none of them is unique to Cyprinids. Furthermore, all of them, and others, are shared with the other families that together constitute the order Cypriniformes. The selection of species that follows can be safely regarded as consisting of noncontroversial, universally accepted members of the family Cyprinidae.

[Ebook] 500 freshwater aquarium fish – Cyprinids

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