Rhinichthys

Rhinichthys, known as the riffle daces, is a genus of freshwater fish in the carp family (Cyprinidae) of the order Cypriniformes. The type species is Rhinichthys atratulus, the blacknose dace. Rhinichthys species range throughout North America.

Rhinichthys
Loach minnow (R. cobitis)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Cypriniformes
Family:	Cyprinidae
Clade:	Pogonichthyinae
Genus:	Rhinichthys Agassiz, 1849
Type species
Cyprinus atronasus Mitchill, 1815
Species
9, see text.
Synonyms
Apocope Cope, 1872 Argyreus Heckel, 1843 Eritrema Cope & Yarrow, 1875 Tiaroga Girard, 1856

The genus contains eight living species, one of which (the loach minnow) is considered Vulnerable. It also includes the extinct Las Vegas dace, which was only first described in 1984 and had disappeared by 1986. The cheat minnow (Pararhinichthys bowersi), a natural hybrid of the longnose dace (R. cataractae) and the river chub (Nocomis micropogon), was formerly placed in this genus, but is now valid under Pararhinichthys.

The riffle daces are a basal lineage in an insufficiently resolved clade of American Leuciscinae. Such a group had been proposed on anatomical evidence, and was verified using mtDNA 12S rRNA sequences.(Simons & Mayden 1997)

Species

There are currently 9 valid species;

• Rhinichthys atratulus (Hermann, 1804) (Eastern blacknose dace)
• Rhinichthys cataractae (Valenciennes, 1842) (Longnose dace)
• Rhinichthys cobitis (Girard, 1856) (Loach minnow)
• †Rhinichthys deaconi R. R. Miller, 1984 (Las Vegas dace)
• Rhinichthys evermanni Snyder, 1908 (Umpqua dace)
• Rhinichthys falcatus (C. H. Eigenmann & R. S. Eigenmann, 1893) (Leopard dace)
• Rhinichthys obtusus Agassiz, 1854 (Western blacknose dace)
• Rhinichthys osculus (Girard, 1856) (Speckled dace)
• Rhinichthys umatilla (C. H. Gilbert & Evermann, 1894) (Umatilla dace)

References

• Simons, Andrew M. & Mayden, Richard L. (1997): Phylogenetic Relationships of the Creek Chubs and the Spine-Fins: an Enigmatic Group of North American Cyprinid Fishes (Actinopterygii: Cyprinidae). Cladistics 13(3): 187–205. doi:10.1111/j.1096-0031.1997.tb00315.x (HTML abstract)