Diversity of Barbinae fishes in southern Europe with description of a new genus and a new species (Cyprinidae)

The subfamily Barbinae from southern Europe includes 17 fish species: 8 in the genus Barbus s.str. and nine in the new genus Messinobarbus. According to their recurrent, preferential habitat European barbs can be divided in t hree groups: a) large-sized, warm-water adapted species (i.e., "bocagei-bar bus";group) composed of eleven species; b) medium-sized, moderately cold-wa ter adapted (i.e., "meridionalis" group) comprised of four allopatric speci es; and c) medium-sized, warm-water adapted, moderately riverine or lacustr ine species (i.e., "cyclolepis" group) with two species Major Barbinae dive rsity occurs on the Iberian Peninsula with eight species and in Greece with five species. Riverine species tend to from paired complexs: each generall y consisting of a lacustrine and a moderately riverine form in each basin. The current ecological segregation or allopatry between riverine species su ggests that they were derived from precocial (pedogenetic) populations of a lacustrine (especially those from the Upper-Aegen Sea) Barbinae species du ring sequential waves of colonisation that occurred during glacial melting periods throughout the Pleistocene. The progressive reduction of a dorsal f in spine may coincide with the vicariant formation of these species. Specie s which display well developed horny tubercles on the snout are included in a new genus, Messinibarbus, comprised of nine endemic species (seven on Ib erian Peninsula and two in western Greece). A new species, Messinobarbus ca rottae, previously misidentified as B. graecus, is described from Lake Ylik i in Beothia, Greece.