A new species of balitorid stone loach has been found in a stream in north western Greece's Aoos River drainage.
The new loach, which is a member of the nemacheilinae subfamily, has been named Barbatula pindus by Panos Stavros Economidis in a paper in the latest issue of the journal Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters.
The fish was found in the Sarantopos stream, which is a tributary of the Aoos river in north western Greece, and differs from other Barbatula mainly by its deep, short caudal peduncle and long barbels. It also has distinctive fins and a different colour pattern to related species.
Stone loaches are common in clean, well-oxygenated rivers in UK and one species, Barbatula barbatula, occurs in many locations in the UK.
This very widespread loach is distributed from as far as China, Japan and Siberia to Ireland, and sometimes turns up in aquarium shops as a subject for the coldwater aquarium.
For more details on the new loach species see the paper: Economidis, PS (2005) - Barbatula pindus, a new species of stone loach from Greece (Teleostei: Balitoridae). Icthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. Vol. 16. No. 1. pp 67-74.