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Cyprinidae is
the largest family of freshwater fishes with more than 2,000 species
distributed throughout Eurasia, Africa, and North America (Nelson 1994).
Eighteen species/populations of troglomorphic hypogean cyprinids have been
described so far. Three are from Africa and the rest are from Asia,
ranging from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. Most Cyprinids have
scales to some degree. Nothing in their morphology, physiology or
behavior seems to support the idea of a family being preadapted to the
hypogean environment. Thus, the large number of hypogean
representatives seems to be just the result of the fact that this is a
highly speciosed family.
Most of the troglobitic species have been discovered in the last ten years
in China and Southeast Asia. Many of their descriptions have been
published in Chinese and specimens of those species have yet to be
examined by researchers others than those who described them. For those
that have been more thoroughly studied, there are indications that their
taxonomy may be wrong. For example, it is quite possible that Barbopsis
devecchii, Phreatichthys andruzzii, Caecobarbus geertsi
and Iranocypris typhlops should all be assigned to the genus
Barbus (Ercolini et al. 1982). A very close genetic relationship
between the first two is supported by allozyme studies (Sbordoni et al.
1996).
Trajano et al. (2002) found several individuals of epigean cyprinid species of the genera
Danio, Tor, Garra, and Propuntius in caves of
Thailand. Burr et al (2001) reported Cyprinus
carpio and
Pimephales promelas for Mystery Cave, Perry
County, Missouri. Su et al. (2003) has reported Sinocrossocheilus
bamaensis as inhabiting caves during the winter and leaving them
during the Spring and Summer for feeding. In the same paper they
also reported another species of the same genus, S.
liuchengensis, as inhabiting underground rivers of the Guanxi Province
of China. Neither show apparent blindness and depigmentation,
although the latter does have its fins depigmented.
There are more than 50 species described of the genus Sinocyclocheilus
and most of them are found in or around caves. 10 of those species
actually show troglomorphisms. S.
liuchengensis and S. bamaensis have been reported
from underground waters in China, although they show no troglomorphic
characters (Su et al. 2003, Xiao et al. 2005).
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1. Barbopsis devecchii Di Caporiacco,
1926
2. Caecobarbus geertsi Boulenger, 1921
3. Caecocypris basimi Banister & Bunni, 1980
4. Garra barreimiae Fowler & Steinitz, 1956
5. Garra dunsirei Banister, 1987
6. Iranocypris typhlops Bruun & Kaiser, 1944
7. Phreatichthys andruzzii Vinciguerra, 1924
8. Poropuntius speleops (Roberts, 1991)
9. Puntius
microps (Günther,
1868)
10. Sinocyclocheilus anatirostris Lin & Luo, 1986
11. Sinocyclocheilus angularis Zheng & Wang, 1990
12. Sinocyclocheilus anophthalmus Chen, Chu, Luo &
Wu, 1988
13. Sinocyclocheilus cyphotergous (Dai, 1988)
14. Sinocyclocheilus
donglanensis Zhao, Watanabe &
Zhang 2006
15. Sinocyclocheilus furcodorsalis Chen, Yang & Lan,
1997
16. Sinocyclocheilus hyalinus Chen & Yang in Chen,
Yang & Zhu, 1994
17. Sinocyclocheilus
lingyunensis Li, Xiao & Luo, 2000
18.
Sinocyclocheilus macrophthalmus Zhang and Zhao
2001
19. Sinocyclocheilus microphthalmus Li, 1989
20. Troglocyclocheilus khammouanensis Kottelat &
Bréhier, 1999
21. Typhlobarbus nudiventris Chu & Chen, 1982
22. Typhlogarra widdowsoni Trewavas, 1955 |