title: Stone loaches of Choman River system, Kurdistan, Iran (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Nemacheilidae).
abstract: For the first time, we present data on species composition and distributions of nemacheilid loaches in the Choman River basin of Kurdistan province, Iran. Two genera and four species are recorded from the area, of which three species are new for science: Oxynoemacheilus kurdistanicus, O. zagrosensis, O. chomanicus spp. nov., and Turcinoemacheilus kosswigi Băn. et Nalb. Detailed and illustrated morphological descriptions and univariate and multivariate analysis of morphometric and meristic features are for each of these species. Forty morphometric and eleven meristic characters were used in multivariate analysis to select characters that could discriminate between the four loach species. Discriminant Function Analysis revealed that sixteen morphometric measures and five meristic characters have the most variability between the loach species. The dendrograms based on cluster analysis of Mahalanobis distances of morphometrics and a combination of both characters confirmed two distinct groups: Oxynoemacheilus spp. and T. kosswigi. Within Oxynoemacheilus, O. zagrosensis and O. chomanicus are more similar to one other rather to either is to O. kurdistanicus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Fisheries Science, College of Natural Resources, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj 66177-15175, Iran. The Center for Research and Development of Northern Zagros Forestry, University of Kurdistan, Baneh 66919-14919, Iran.; Email: bbkamangar@uok.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Barzan Bahrami
authors.initials: BB
authors.lastname: Kamangar
authors.affiliation: A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninskii prospect 33, Moscow 119071, Russia.; Email: prokart@rambler.ru.
authors.forename: Artem M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Prokofiev
authors.affiliation: Department of Fisheries Science, College of Natural Resources, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj 66177-15175, Iran.; Email: e.ghaderi@uok.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Edris
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ghaderi
authors.affiliation: Deceased; formerly National Museum of Natural History "Grigore Antipa", Bucharest 011341, Romania; Email: unknown.
authors.forename: Theodore T
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Nalbant
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003531:Cypriniformes / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification* / Q000502:physiology; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D007492:Iran; D008297:Male; D045483:Rivers; D013045:Species Specificity