- For the genus Barbus see there. For many of the tropical aquarium fish commonly known as "barbs", see Puntius.
Barb is a common and rather nondescript term for certain ray-finned fish species in the family Cyprinidae, especially the genera Barbus and Puntius but many others also. They were formerly united with the barbels in the subfamily Barbinae, but that group is paraphyletic with the Cyprininae. If the Labeoninae are recognized as distinct, many small African "barbs" would probably, however, warrant recognition as a new subfamily.[1]
The root of the word "barb" is common in cyprinid names of European languages, from the Latin barba ("beard") (COD):
- barbi from Finnish
- barba from Spanish
- barbeau from French
and many others. This is in reference to the barbels which are prominently seen around the mouth of many "barbs".
Genera containing "barbs"
Genera that contain species with common names including "barb":
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See also
Footnotes
- ^ de Graaf et al. (2007)
References
- de Graaf, Martin; Megens, Hendrik-Jan; Samallo, Johannis & Sibbing, Ferdinand A. (2007): Evolutionary origin of Lake Tana's (Ethiopia) small Barbus species: indications of rapid ecological divergence and speciation. Anim. Biol. 57(1): 39-48. doi:10.1163/157075607780002069 (HTML abstract)
External links
- "Barbs fish species profiles". http://www.aquariumdomain.com/viewFreshwaterSpeciesList.php?species=Barbs. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
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