Oxynoemacheilus marmaraensis, new species, is restricted to the Susurluk River. It is distinguished from all the named species of Oxynoemacheilus in the northwestern Anatolian by the flank with a vermiculate pattern and the presence of a suborbital groove in males, and no axillary lobe at the base of the pelvic fin. It also differs from the closest species, Oxynoemacheilus kentritensis, by having 58 nucleotide substitution sites. The genetic distance is 10.49% between O. marmaraensis and O. kentritensis. Phylogenetic analyses and species delimitation tests (Poisson tree processes and assemble species by automatic partitioning) support the validity of O. marmaraensis as a distinct species.
Keywords: COI; Türkiye; freshwater fish; loach; taxonomy.
© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Fish Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Fisheries Society of the British Isles.