Proterorhinus semilunaris (Heckel, 1837)

Iftime, Alexandru & Oţel, Vasile, 2025, An annotated systematical checklist of the Romanian ichthyofauna, Zootaxa 5654 (1), pp. 1-64 : 27

Proterorhinus semilunaris (Heckel, 1837)

A native fresh- and brackish-water species, found along along the Danube and its tributaries (up to intra-Carpathian areas), as well as in all the Delta and the Razim complex and in some inland wetlands ( Bănărescu 1964 [as part of P. marmoratus ]; Moshu et al. 2006 [as part of P. marmoratus ]; Oțel 2007 [as part of P. marmoratus ]; Kottelat & Freyhof 2007; Roche et al. 2013; Cocan & MireȘan 2018 [as both part of P. marmoratus and as P. semilunaris ]; Manilo 2020; Năstase et al. 2022 [as P. marmoratus ]; Nagy et al. 2023).

The mtDNA-informed split between the mainly marine P. marmoratus and the fresh- and brackish-water P. semilunaris ( Stepien & Tumeo 2006; Kottelat & Freyhof 2007; Sorokin et al. 2011; Slynko et al. 2013) allows purely marine Romanian populations to be attributed to P. marmoratus , while fresh- and brackish-water ones to P. semilunaris ( Kottelat & Freyhof 2007; Manilo 2020), though actual genetic sampling of Romanian populations was minimal.

ORD. SYNGNATHIFORMES

Fam. Mullidae

Mullus barbatus Linnaeus, 1758

A native marine species, found along all Romanian Black Sea waters ( Bănărescu 1964); recently apparently not found in the Danube mouths area (Oțel 2007; Vasil’eva 2007; Maximov & Zaharia 2010; Yankova et al. 2014; Țoțoiu et al. 2018; Cocan & MireȘan 2018; Maximov et al. 2019; Niță et al. 2022).

The Pontic population is sometimes treated as a full species, Mullus ponticus Essipov, 1927 ( Echreshavi et al. 2022) or as Mullus barbatus , with ponticus as a subspecies thereof ( Uiblein et al. 2024).