Cobitis saniae Eagderi, Jouladeh-Roudbar, Jalili, Sayyadzadeh & Esmaeili, 2017

Freyhof, Jörg, Bayçelebi, Esra & Geiger, Matthias, 2018, Review of the genus Cobitis in the Middle East, with the description of eight new species (Teleostei: Cobitidae), Zootaxa 4535 (1), pp. 1-75 : 28-29

Cobitis saniae Eagderi, Jouladeh-Roudbar, Jalili, Sayyadzadeh & Esmaeili, 2017

( Fig. 21 )

Cobitis saniae Eagderi, Jouladeh-Roudbar, Jalili, Sayyadzadeh & Esmaeili, 2017: 51 , figs. 4–5 (type locality: Iran: Guilan prov.: Bara Goor River, a tributary of Sefid River, near Emamzadeh Hashem, Caspian Sea Basin, 37.003 49.630).

Material examined. FSJF 3215 , 47 , 31–71 mm SL; Iran: Guilan prov.: Lower Sefid River below dam at Shar Bijar , 37.020 49.631 .— FSJF 3612 , 7 , 31–77 mm SL; Georgia: Tskhenitskale River upstream from Samtredia, 42.169 42.431.—FFR05500, 1, 45 mm SL; Turkey: Kars prov.: stream Selim , 40.466 42.777.—FFR05500, 2, 47– 49 mm SL; Turkey: Kars prov.: stream Kars at Çamçavuş bridge, 40.723 43.170 .

Material used in molecular genetic analysis. FSJF DNA-1978 , Iran: Guilan prov.: Lower Sefid River below dam at Shar Bijar , 37.020, 49.631. (Accession number: KP 050528 ) .— FSJF DNA-2713 ; Iran: Cheshmeh Kileh River about 3 km southwest of Qaleh Gardan , 36.740 50.843. ( BOLD accession number: EUFWF 2714-18 ) .— FSJF DNA-2720 ; Iran: Anzali wetland west of Bandar Anzali , 37.467 49.353. ( BOLD accession number: EUFWF2720- 18 ) .— FSJF DNA-2922 ; Armenia: Aghstev River between Sevkar and Ditavan, 40.987 45.189. ( BOLD accession number: MH 795369 ) .

Diagnosis. Cobitis saniae is distinguished from all other Cobitis species in the Caspian and Black Sea basin by having the base of the single lamina circularis widely connected to the pectoral-fin ray (vs. narrow connection). It is further distinguished from C. amphilekta by having a small focal zone in the sub-dorsal scales (about 1/10 or less of the maximum scale diameter vs. focal zone large, about 1/2 of the maximum scale diameter). Cobitis saniae is further distinguished from C. faridpaki by the zone between the eye and the opercle being strongly pigmented (vs. poorly pigmented or unpigmented) and it is further distinguished from C. avicennae from the Tigris River drainage by having a narrow, dorsal and ventral adipose crest on the caudal peduncle (vs. absent).

Distribution. Cobitis saniae occurs from the Sefid River in Iran north-west to the Kura and Aras River drainages in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey. We also found it in the middle Rioni River in the Georgian Black Sea basin (FSJF 3612).

Remarks. Molecular data ( Fig. 1 ) as well as those shown by Jouladeh-Roudbar et al. (2017) and Perdices et al. (2018), place C. saniae in the C. taenia species group close to C. avicennae and C. faridpaki . Based on DNA barcoding it is well separated from all other included Cobitis and by a minimum K2P distance of 2.7% to C. faridpaki . It is further supported as a PTP and mPTP entity.

In the north of its range, C. saniae and C. amphilekta might occur in sympatry as both occur in the lower Kura and adjacent coastal wetland.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Maximum likelihood estimation of the phylogenetic relationships based on the mitochondrial COI barcode region (TN93 model, discrete Gamma distribution for rate differences with 3 categories +G parameter = 0.3792. Nucleotide positions with less than 95% site coverage were eliminated, resulting in 590 analysed positions. Numbers of major nodes indicate bootstrap values from 1000 pseudoreplicates from the ML, NJ and MP method. A star denotes highest possible support from all three methods. Solid bars right to the specimen labels indicate species delimitation results from PTP followed by the results of the mPTP approach as dashed bars. Except to the outgroups and the branch to the right part of the figure, the tree is drawn to scale with branch lengths depicting number of substitutions per site.

FIGURE 21. Cobitis saniae, IMNRF-UT-1091-1, holotype, female, 84.6 mm SL. Iran: Guilan prov.: near Emamzadeh Hashem, Bara Goor stream a tributary of Sefid River. Photo: Soheil Eagderi