The Ohrid minnow (''Pelasgus minutus'') is a species of

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. The term excludes seawater and brackish water, but it does include non-salty mi ...

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 ...

, which includes the daces, Eurasian minnows and related species. It is found in the Western Balkans.

Taxonomy

The Ohrid minnow was first formally described as ''Paraphoxinus minutus'' by the Yugoslav

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...

Stanko Karaman Stanko Luka Karaman (8 December 1889 – 17 May 1959) was a Yugoslav biologist of Bosnian Serb ancestry, researcher on amphipod and isopod crustaceans. In 1926 he founded the Museum of South Serbia (later - Macedonian Museum of Natural History) ...

with its type locality given as Lake Ohrid and its backwaters in

Macedonia Macedonia (, , , ), most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a former administr ...

. This species is now classified in the genus ''

Pelasgus In Greek mythology, Pelasgus (, ''Pelasgós'' means "ancient") was the eponymous ancestor of the Pelasgians, the mythical inhabitants of Greece who established the worship of the Dodonaean Zeus, Hephaestus, the Cabeiri, and other divinities. In the ...

'' within 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 ...

of the family

Etymology

The Ohrid minnow belongs to the genus ''

'', this name is derived from the

Pelasgians The name Pelasgians (, ) was used by Classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergence of the Greeks. In general, "Pelasgian" has come to mean more broadly all ...

, the ancient people who lived around the

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 ...

before the arrival of the Indo-European speaking ancestors of the Greeks in the second millennium B.C.E., and alludes to the fishes in this genus all being found in the

Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

. 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 ...

, ''minutus'', means "small", a reference to the smaller scales of this species than to its original presumed congeners in ''Paraphoxinus'', a taxon now regarded as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of '' Pseudophoxinus''.

Description

The Ohrid minnow has 3 spines and 7 soft rays 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 ...

and 3 spines and 6 soft rays in the

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 ...

. This species has only a limited number of relatively large scales on the body. It has a relatively longer body and shorter tail than '' Pelasgus epiroticus'', as well as larger eyes and a wider, longer head. Its lower lip extends slightly beyond the upper lip, and the mouth opening is relatively small, but still larger than that of ''P. epiroticus''. This fish has a maximum

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

of .

Distributionand habitat

The Ohrid minnow is endemic to the Western Balkans where it is found in the Lakee Ohrid drainage system in North Macedonia and Albania, the

Lake Skadar Lake Skadar or Lake Scutari (, ; cnr-Cyrl-Latn, Скадарско језеро, Skadarsko jezero, )also called Lake Shkodra (and ''Lake Shkodër'')lies on the border of Albania and Montenegro, and is the largest lake in Southern Europe. It is n ...

drainage system in Albania and Montenegro, in the

Black Drin The Black Drin, or Black Drim (; ) is a river in North Macedonia and Albania. It flows out of Lake Ohrid in Struga, North Macedonia. It is long and its drainage basin is . Its average discharge is . After flowing through North Macedonia for , the ...

in Albania and Montenegro and in two coastal streams flowing into the

Bay of Kotor The Bay of Kotor ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Boka kotorska, Бока которска, separator=" / ", ), also known as the Boka ( sh-Cyrl, Бока), is a winding bay of the Adriatic Sea in southwestern Montenegro and the region of Montenegro concentrated a ...

between the cities of

Tivat Tivat (Serbo-Croatian: Tivat/Тиват, ) is a town in Coastal region of Montenegro, located in the Bay of Kotor. , its population was 9,367. Tivat is the centre of Tivat Municipality, which is the smallest municipality by area in Montenegro. ...

and

Budva Budva (Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Будва, or ) is a town in the Coastal Montenegro, Coastal region of Montenegro. It had 27,445 inhabitants as of 2023, and is the centre of Budva Municipality. The coastal area around Budva, called the Budv ...

in Montenegro. This species prefers waterbodies with slow-moving or stangnant water where there is a lot of aquatic vegetation, typically in spring fed wetlands and lakes from sea level to upland plateaux.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1384950 Pelasgus (fish) Fish described in 1924 Taxa named by Stanko Karaman Taxonomy articles created by Polbot