Scientists have erected a new genus called Linichthys for the species formally known as Barbodes laticeps.
Fang Fang and E Zhang describe in a paper in the latest issue of the journal Copeia how and why they erected the new genus for this unusual member of the Barbinae subfamily, which is now known as Linichthys laticeps.
The fish, which was described by C Zhang and Lin in 1986, is quite different from other members of the Barbinae - so called barbines - because it has a shallow depression extending along the upper section of its top lip.
Fang and Zhang say that the diagnosis for the genus Linichthys makes it superficially similar to the type species of the Chinese cave cyprinid fish genus Typhlobarbus, which at present contains a single known species called nudiventris.
The fish is known only from the upper and middle reaches of the Zhu Jiang basin and the upper Chiang Jiang basin in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, South China.
For more details see the paper: E. Zhang, and Fang Fang (2005) - Linichthys: A New Genus of Chinese Cyprinid Fishes (Teleostei: Cypriniformes). Copeia: Vol. 2005, No. 1, pp. 61-67.