New Species of Aphanius (Teleostei, Cyprinodontidae) from Isfahan Province of Iran and a Reanalysis of Other Iranian Species

A new killifish species, Aphanius isfahanensis, is described from the Isfahan basin of Iran. It is distinguished from the other Iranian species of Aphanius by adult color pattern, molecular character states of mitochondrial DNA sequence data, and in multivariate morphometric and meristic space. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of molecular sequence data, the new species is hypothesized to be sister taxon to A. sophiae plus A. persicus, which also occur in Iran.

Figure 1.

Map of collections of Iranian Aphanius made for this study.Base map was created at Online Map Creations http://www.aquarius.geomar.de/omc/

Figure 2.

(A) Aphanius isfahanensis, male holotype, 25.0 mm SL.(B) Aphanius isfahanensis, female paratype, 38.3 mm SL from the type locality

Figure 3.

Principal component analysis of 20 standardized morphometric measurements in males (A) and females (B) and of six meristic counts analyzed jointly for both sexes (C).Open circles (○) represent specimens of A. isfahanensis, vertical crosses (+) represent A. sophiae, diagonal crosses (×) represent A. persicus, and triangles (▴) represent A. vladykovi. Ellipses denote the 68.27% density limits of each sample

Figure 4.

Maximum likelihood estimate of phylogenetic relationships of Aphanius isfahanensis to other species of Aphanius of the western clade of species of Aphanius (Hrbek and Meyer, 2003).-ln L = 14164.01742, α = 0.950747, pinvar = 0.538377. Numbers above nodes represent Bayesian likelihood values followed by maximum likelihood and maximum parsimony bootstrap values. Species and geographic localities correspond to those listed in Material Examined and those from Hrbek and Meyer (2003). Localities of Aphanius sophiae are: (1) Dolarabad, Iran; (2) Malaskuh, Iran; (3) Abdolmahdi, Iran; and (4) Kor River basin near Shiraz, Iran. Aphanius persicus: Nasrabad Spring near Imamzadeh Ibrahim, Iran. Aphanius vladykovi: (1) Boldaji, Iran; (2) Nadar-Bokhtri, Iran; (3) Ebrahimabad, Iran; and (4) Taqanak, Iran. Aphanius anatoliae anatoliae: (1) Lake Eğirdir at Karaot, Turkey; (2) Lake Isıklı near Beydilli, Turkey; and (3) Thaliye Canal by Sulamasi, Turkey. Aphanius anatoliae splendens: Lake Salda, Turkey. Aphanius danfordii: Soysalii springs in Sultan Swamps, Turkey. Aphanius villwocki: Pinarbaşi in upper Sakarya River, Turkey. Aphanius fasciatus: Lake Tuzla near Tarsus, Turkey. Aphanius asquamatus: Lake Hazer, Turkey. Both individuals of Aphanius isfahanensis are from Zayandeh River near Varzaneh, Iran