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 three groups: a) large-sized, warm-water adapted species (i.e., "bocagei-barbus";group) composed of eleven species; b) medium-sized, moderately cold-water adapted (i.e., "meridionalis" group) comprised of four allopatric species; and c) medium-sized, warm-water adapted, moderately riverine or lacustrine species (i.e., "cyclolepis" group) with two species Major Barbinae diversity occurs on the Iberian Peninsula with eight species and in Greece with five species. Riverine species tend to from paired complexs: each generally consisting of a lacustrine and a moderately riverine form in each basin. The current ecological segregation or allopatry between riverine species suggests that they were derived from precocial (pedogenetic) populations of a lacustrine (especially those from the Upper-Aegen Sea) Barbinae species during sequential waves of colonisation that occurred during glacial melting periods throughout the Pleistocene. The progressive reduction of a dorsal fin spine may coincide with the vicariant formation of these species. Species which display well developed horny tubercles on the snout are included in a new genus, Messinibarbus, comprised of nine endemic species (seven on Iberian Peninsula and two in western Greece). A new species, Messinobarbus carottae, previously misidentified as B. graecus, is described from Lake Yliki in Beothia, Greece.