2021/02/12 by Dong‐Ming Guo, E Zhang · 1 citation
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Fish Biology and Ecology Studies #Fish Ecology and Management Studies #Identification and Quantification in Food
paper · pdf · doi:10.3897/zookeys.1017.57503
openalex publication_date 2021/02/12 · openalex created_date 2021/03/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Leptobotia citrauratea (Nichols, 1925), a loach species, originally described from Dongting Lake, was recently rehabilitated, based on the examination of the holotype and non-topotypical specimens. Several field surveys conducted from 2016 to 2019 in Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Hunan Provinces, P.R. China, yielded many specimens of Leptobotia which were initially identified as L. citrauratea . Molecular and morphological analyses of these specimens demonstrated that two distinct species are involved. One was identified as L. citrauratea , represented by specimens from both the Poyang and Dongting Lake (type locality) systems in Jiangxi and Hunan Provinces, and the other species is described as L. brachycephala , represented by specimens from the Ou-Jiang and Qu-Jiang, two coastal rivers of Zhejiang Province, China. Leptobotia brachycephala resembles L. citrauratea and L. micra in having a row of orange dots or an orange stripe along the dorsal mid-line of the body, extending from the nape to the caudal-fin base – a unique character in Leptobotia . Leptobotia brachycephala differs from L. citrauratea and L. micra Bohlen & Šlechtová, 2017, in caudal-fin shape and pelvic-fin insertion and proportional measurements including caudal-fin length, head length, predorsal length and anal-fin length. Its species status was further corroborated by position in a molecular phylogenetic analysis, based on the mitochondrial cyt b gene and its minimum uncorrected p-distance (2.9%) from congeneric species.