''Oxynoemacheilus argyrogramma'', the two-spot loach is 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 hor ...

in the genus ''

Oxynoemacheilus ''Oxynoemacheilus'' is a genus of fish in the family Nemacheilidae found in Europe and Western Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academic ...

''.Kottelat, M. (2012)
Conspectus cobitidum: an inventory of the loaches of the world (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Cobitoidei).
''The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, Suppl. No. 26: 1-199.'' This species is found in the drainage of the

Queiq River The Queiq (Modern Standard Arabic: , ''Quwayq'', ; Syrian Arabic, northern Syrian Arabic: ''ʾWēʾ'', ), with many variant spellings, known in antiquity as the Belus ( grc-gre, Βήλος, ''Bēlos''), Chalos and also known in English as t ...

in Syria and Turkey, and the upper

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...

drainage in Turkey and possibly in this drainage in Syria and Iraq. It has almost been

extirpated Local extinction, also known as extirpation, refers to a species (or other taxon) of plant or animal that ceases to exist in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinct ...

from the Queiq as this river has virtually dried out but it remains abundant in the Euphrates. This species can be found in a wide range of habitats as long as there is a moderately fast current from small upland streams to banks of large rivers. It can also occur in stagnant water bodies such as reservoirs. It is threatened by water abstraction, lowering rainfall due to climate change and the construction of dams. The economic development of the area where this species occurs exacerbates these threats. Freyhof and Özuluǧ published a paper in 2017 that argued that ''Oxynoemacheilus euphraticus'' was a valid species and not a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

of ''O. argyrogramma''. Abstract.

Footnotes

* argyrogramma Taxa named by Johann Jakob Heckel Fish described in 1848 {{Nemacheilidae-stub