''Caecocypris basimi'', the Haditha cavefish, is a species of

cyprinid 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 verte ...

fish

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to Iraq, only occurring in

aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing, permeable rock, rock fractures, or unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Groundwater from aquifers can be extracted using a water well. Aquifers vary greatly in their characterist ...

s near Haditha. This cavefish is the only member of its genus. The species is classed as Critically endangered, possibly extinct, by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

, as there have been no records since 1983 despite a comprehensive survey in 2012. The primary threat is water extraction, which has lowered the

groundwater level The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

. The cavefish ''

Typhlogarra widdowsoni ''Typhlogarra widdowsoni'' or ''Garra widdowsoni'', the Iraq blind barb or Haditha cave garra, is a species of cyprinid fish endemic to underground water systems near Haditha in Iraq. Although traditionally placed in its own genus ''Typhlogarra' ...

'' is found in the same place and it has also drastically declined, but it is not as rare as ''Caecocypris basimi''. The only other known cavefish in Iraq is ''

Eidinemacheilus ''Eidinemacheilus'' is a genus of troglobitic fish in the family Nemacheilidae endemic to Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. Species There are currently 2 recognized species in this genus: * '' Eidinemacheilus proudlovei'' Freyhof, Abdullah, Ararat, Ib ...

proudlovei''. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

of ''Caecocypris basimi'', collected by Dr. Basim M Al Azzawi in 1977, is deposited at the British Museum of Natural History and other specimens are at the Australian Museum.K.E. Banister & M.K. Bunni (1980). A new blind cyprinid fish from Iraq". ''Bull. Br. Mus.nat Hist (Zool.)''38 (3): 151-158.

References

Cyprinid fish of Asia Fauna of Iraq Cave fish Monotypic fish genera Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Cyprinidae-stub