Schizothorax


Schizothorax is a genus of cyprinid fish found in southern and western China, through northern South Asia and Central Asia, to Iran, with a single species, S. prophylax, in Turkey. They are primarily found in highland rivers, streams and lakes, although a few species occur in lower-lying locations, like Lake Balkhash and lakes of the Sistan Basin. Their scientific name means "cloven-breast", from Ancient Greek schízeïn "to cleave" and thórax "breast-plate". The western species are typically referred to as marinkas from their Russian name marinka, while the eastern species are usually called snowtrout. Although they do resemble trouts in habitus this is merely due to convergent evolution and they are by no means closely related apart from both being Teleostei: Cyprinids are in the teleost superorder Ostariophysi, while trouts are in the superorder Protacanthopterygii. Their ancestors must thus have diverged as early as the Triassic, more than 200 million years ago.
Schizothorax is a part of the schizothoracines, which also includes the genera Aspiorhynchus, Chuanchia, Diptychus, Gymnodiptychus, Gymnocypris, Oxygymnocypris, Platypharodon, Ptychobarbus, Schizopyge and Schizopygopsis. The last two were formerly often included in the present genus, and their delimitation is still not entirely clear. In any case, the genus Schizothorax are in turn related to such cyprinids as the typical barbels, Carasobarbus, Labeobarbus, Aulopyge and Cyprinion. They were thus placed in the subfamily Barbinae, which is quite paraphyletic however and thus here merged with the Cyprininae at least for the largest part, becoming its junior synonym in the process.

Species

There are currently 65 recognized species in this genus: