Andalusian barbel

The Andalusian barbel or (Luciobarbus sclateri) is a freshwater fish species in the family Cyprinidae. It is here placed in Luciobarbus following the IUCN, but that genus is very closely related to the other typical barbels and perhaps better considered a mere subgenus of Barbus. The Andalusian barbel was formerly included in L. bocagei as subspecies.[1]

Andalusian barbel
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Cyprinidae
Subfamily: Barbinae
Genus: Luciobarbus
Species:
L. sclateri
Binomial name
Luciobarbus sclateri
(Günther, 1868)
Synonyms

Barbus bocagei sclateri Günther, 1868 (but see text) Barbus sclateri Günther, 1868 (but see text)

L. sclateri is endemic to the southern part Iberian Peninsula, where it occurs in both Portugal and Spain. It inhabits the middle and lower parts of rivers, between the Segura's and the Mira Rivers' drainage basins. It is not very particular as regards its habitat choice, and will use anything except small cool torrential mountain streams. They spawn at the beginning of summer, between May and June. The males reach sexual maturity at 2 to 4 years of age and around 8 cm (3.1 in), while females only reach maturity in their sixth or seventh year and at 11 to 16 cm (4.3 to 6.3 in) in length. Despite its fairly small size for a barbel, it is a long-lived species, with a maximum age of 18 years having been recorded.[2]

The Andalusian barbel is quite abundant and not considered a threatened species by the IUCN, though locally populations may go extinct during summer droughts which isolate and dry up small creeks it inhabits. Habitat fragmentation, which is already affecting the species, is exacerbated by this.[2]

Footnotes
  1. de Graaf et al. (2007), Almodóvar et al. (2008), Freyhof & Kottelat (2008)
  2. Freyhof & Kottelat (2008)

References
  • Almodóvar, Ana; Nicola, Graciela G. & Elvira, Benigno (2008): Natural hybridization of Barbus bocagei x Barbus comizo (Cyprinidae) in Tagus River basin, central Spain [English with French abstract]. Cybium 32(2): 99-102. PDF fulltext
  • de Graaf, Martin; Megens, Hendrik-Jan; Samallo, Johannis & Sibbing, Ferdinand A. (2007): Evolutionary origin of Lake Tana's (Ethiopia) small Barbus species: indications of rapid ecological divergence and speciation. Anim. Biol. 57(1): 39–48. doi:10.1163/157075607780002069 (HTML abstract)
  • Freyhof, J. & Kottelat, M. (2008). "Luciobarbus sclateri". The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN. 2008: e.T2589A9459334. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T2589A9459334.en. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  • Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2014). "Luciobarbus sclateri" in FishBase. April 2014 version.


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