The Dnieper chub or the Black Sea chub (''Petroleuciscus borysthenicus'') is a species of freshwater

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Leuciscidae Leuciscidae is a family of freshwater ray-finned fishes, formerly classified as a subfamily of the Cyprinidae, which contains the true minnows. Members of the Old World (OW) clade of minnows within this subfamily are known as European minnow ...

, the daces, Eurasian minnows and related fishes. This species is found in rivers draining into the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

and

Sea of Azov The Sea of Azov is an inland Continental shelf#Shelf seas, shelf sea in Eastern Europe connected to the Black Sea by the narrow (about ) Strait of Kerch, and sometimes regarded as a northern extension of the Black Sea. The sea is bounded by Ru ...

, as well as the rivers] draining into the northern

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

Taxonomy

The Dnieper chub was first formally described as ''Squalius borysthenicus'' by the

Baltic German Baltic Germans ( or , later ) are Germans, ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950), their resettlement in 1945 after the end ...

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

Karl Kessler Karl Fedorovich Kessler (; – ) was a Baltic German zoologist who worked as a professor of biology at Saint Petersburg Imperial University. Among his contributions was the idea that evolution at an infraspecific level involved mutual aid a ...

with its type locality given as an arm of the

Dnieper River The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

at Aleschki, Ukraine. This taxon has been classified in the genus ''

Squalius ''Squalius'' is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family (biology), family Leuciscidae, the daces, Eurasian minnows and reklated fishes. The fishies in this genus are found in Europe and Asia. Hybrid (biology), Hybridization ...

'' but it is now classified in the genus ''

Petroleuciscus ''Petroleuciscus'' is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, Eurasian minnows and related fishes. It was usually included in ''Leuciscus'' until recently. This genus unites the Ponto- ...

''. It is the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

of that genus which is classified in the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...

Leuciscinae Leuciscinae is a subfamily of freshwater Actinopterygii, ray-finned fishes belonging to the Family (biology), family Leuciscidae, which includes the fishes known as daces, chubs, shiners and minnows. The fishes in this subfamily are mainly found i ...

in the family

Etymology

The Dnieper chub is classified in the genus ''Petroleuciscus'', this name was proposed in 2002 by and it combines ''Petro'', a Latinisation of Petr, the forename of the Romanian ichthyologist

Petre Mihai Bănărescu Petre Mihai Bănărescu (born 15 September 1921 in Craiova, Dolj County – died 12 May 2009 in Bucharest) was a Romanian people, Romanian ichthyologist. Bănărescu was a list of members of the Romanian Academy, member of the Romanian Academy. ...

and of Boguskaya's son Petre Naseka, with ''

Leuciscus ''Leuciscus'' is a genus of freshwater and brackish water ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, Eurasian minnows and related species. They are inland water fishes commonly called Eurasian daces. Th ...

'', the genus many of the fishes classified in this new genus were previously classified in. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

, ''borysthenicus'', means "belonging to Borysthenes", the name given to the Dneiper Valley region in ancient times.

Description

The Dnieper chub has 3 or 4 spines and between 8 and 10 soft rays, 8 to rays being branched, in the

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates. Dorsal fins have evolved independently several times through convergent evolution adapting to marine environments, so the fins are not all homologous. They are found ...

while its

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

has 3 or 4 spines and between 9 and 12 soft rays, 9 to rays being branched. It has an orange to red

iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (given name), a feminine given name, and a list of peopl ...

. The

lateral line The lateral line, also called the lateral line organ (LLO), is a system of sensory organs found in fish, used to detect movement, vibration, and pressure gradients in the surrounding water. The sensory ability is achieved via modified epithelia ...

has between 33 and 40 scales. The rear margin of the anal fin is convex. There are no spots on the flank scales. This species has a maximum

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

of , although is more typical.

Distribution and habitat

The Dneiper chub is found in the drainage systems that drain into the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, from Bulgaria to the Dnipr, although it is absent from the

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

and the

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name * Don, Benin, a town in Benin * Don, Dang, a village and hill station in Dang district, Gu ...

, then again on the eastern shore of the Black Sea in Georgia and Russia and in northern Anatolia. It also occurs in the northern basin of the Aegean Sea as far west as the Struma. This species is found in lowland rivers, the lower reaches of montane rivers, limans, lakes, deltas, backwaters with moderate to no current. It prefers warmwaters and can tolerate water temperatures up to 30-32°C and it can tolerate quite low oxygen levels, living in marshes and water bodies with dense vegetation. It is typically a freshwater fish, but can tolerate the brackish waters of limans. It prefers substrates of sand, sand-mud or mud.

Biology

The Dneiper chub is mainly insectivorous but it will also feed on benthic invertebrates, plankton and algae. It gathers in groups of up to 150 fishes for

spawning Spawn is the Egg cell, eggs and Spermatozoa, sperm released or deposited into water by aquatic animals. As a verb, ''to spawn'' refers to the process of freely releasing eggs and sperm into a body of water (fresh or marine); the physical act is ...

. A female will spawn two or three times in a season, the season runs from May to June. This is regarded as a non-migratory fish but they will move into deeper water in the winter.

References

Sources

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q577641 Petroleuciscus Fish described in 1859 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot