''Acanthobrama hulensis'', sometimes known as the Hula bream, was a species of

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fishes, is a class of bony fish. They comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. The ray-finned fishes are so called because their fins are webs of skin supported by bony or h ...

in the family

Cyprinidae Cyprinidae is a family of freshwater fish commonly called the carp or minnow family. It includes the carps, the true minnows, and relatives like the barbs and barbels. Cyprinidae is the largest and most diverse fish family and the largest v ...

. Its natural

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

s were swamps and freshwater lakes in Lake Hula in northern

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. ''Acanthobrama hulensis'' looked much like a

sardine "Sardine" and "pilchard" are common names for various species of small, oily forage fish in the herring family Clupeidae. The term "sardine" was first used in English during the early 15th century, a folk etymology says it comes from the ...

. In Israel other members of the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

often are called "sardin" in culinary terms. The deliberate draining of Lake Hula in the 1950s led to the extinction of this species, along with the

cichlid Cichlids are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Cichliformes. Cichlids were traditionally classed in a suborder, the Labroidei, along with the wrasses ( Labridae), in the order Perciformes, but molecular studies have contradicted th ...

fish ''

Tristramella intermedia ''Tristramella intermedia'' is an extinct species of fish in the family Cichlidae. It was endemic to Lake Hula in northern Israel. This taxon was considered to be a subspecies of '' T. simonis'' in FishBase and considered a synonym of ''T. simon ...

''. The

Israel painted frog The Hula painted frog (''Latonia nigriventer'') is an amphibian and the only living member of the genus '' Latonia,'' which was originally described from several fossil species from the Oligocene to Early Pleistocene of Europe. The Hula painted f ...

was believed to be extinct until a female specimen was found in 2011. ''Acanthobrama hulensis'' was last recorded in 1975.

Description

This species had a maximum length of and was a bottom feeder with a diet of

mollusks Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

and zoobenthos. They spawned from February to April externally.

References

Acanthobrama Endemic fauna of Israel Fish of Israel Fish extinctions since 1500 Fish described in 1973 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Hula Valley Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN {{Israel-stub

Description

See also

References