Petroleuciscus borysthenicus (Kessler 1859)

Iftime, Alexandru & Oţel, Vasile, 2025, An annotated systematical checklist of the Romanian ichthyofauna, Zootaxa 5654 (1), pp. 1-64 : 16

Petroleuciscus borysthenicus (Kessler 1859)

A native, localized freshwater species, living in slow-flowing or stagnant water, in the Danube Delta and the Valea Gurbanului creek, the Neajlov river near its confluence with Valea Gurbanului, in the Comana area, Giurgiu county, ( Bănărescu 1964; Crăciun 1996; MeȘter et al. 2003; Bănărescu 2005; Oțel 2007; Cocan & MireȘan 2018; Năstase et al. 2022; Năstase & Năvodaru 2023). One isolated record in the MureȘ River ( Nalbant 1995) was erroneous (Nalbant, ex verbis). The Comana population was described by Crăciun (1996) (as a sideline upon studying its ethology) as “ Leuciscus borysthenicus ssp. celesticus ”, which was deformed into “ L. celensis ” by MeȘter et al. 2003. Nalbant (2003) commented that Crăciun “described the spawning habits of this species, naming it fortuitously celesticus . Although his action is not completely in accordance with the ICZN rules, it could represent the first description of this species” and accepted it as L. celesticus . While possibly available, celesticus is likely not valid ( Bănărescu 2005; Oțel 2007), and certainly not so as a distinct species; the morphological features emphasized by Crăciun (1996) for celesticus are visible in illustrated specimens from other areas: a darker lateral band (Oțel 2007; Kottelat & Freyhof 2007), a bluish sheen ( Bulat 2017), and the intensely red eye is also part of the known variation ( Kottelat & Freyhof 2007); a molecular phyletic analysis found the Comana population and the Danube Delta one significantly less different from each other than other conspecific populations treated by the same study (Durand et al. 2000).