Esomus Swainson 1839

Tan, Milton & Armbruster, Jonathan W., 2018, Phylogenetic classification of extant genera of fishes of the order Cypriniformes (Teleostei: Ostariophysi), Zootaxa 4476 (1), pp. 6-39 : 6-39

Esominae Tan & Armbruster new subfamily

Type genus: Esomus Swainson 1839

Diagnosis. Esominae can be distinguished from all cypriniforms by the combined presence of long maxillary barbels extending past the pectoral-fin origin (vs. maxillary barbels, when present, not extending past the pectoral-fin origin) and possessing only a single row of teeth on the pharyngeal jaw (vs. multiple rows of teeth on the pharyngeal jaw). In many Esominae, extremely long maxillary barbels are present that extend past the pelvic-fin origin.

Composition. Esomus ahli Hora & Mukerji 1928 , Esomus altus (Blyth 1860) , Esomus barbatus (Jerdon 1849) , Esomus caudiocellatus Ahl 1924 , Esomus danrica (Hamilton 1822) , Esomus longimanus (Lunel 1881) , Esomus malayensis (Matte & Reichelt 1908) , Esomus metallicus Ahl 1924 , Esomus thermoicos (Valenciennes 1842) and the possibly valid species Esomus lineatus Ahl 1923 , Esomus malabaricus Day 1867 and Esomus manipurensis Tilak & Jain 1990 .

Remarks. We derived the diagnosis for Esomus based on information from Hora & Mukerji (1928) and Pasco- Viel et al. (2010). Additionally, morphological descriptions by Talwar & Jhingran (1991) and discussion by Liao et al. (2011) indicate Esominae members possess the following characters: mouth small and superior, lower jaw without symphyseal knob, eyes visible from ventral view, dorsal-fin insertion posterior to pelvic-fin insertion, dorsal fin with six or seven branched rays, anal fin with five branched rays, postcleithrum greatly reduced or absent, lateral line (when present) abruptly descending for first few scales anteriorly.