''Rutilus'', commonly known as roaches, is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of freshwater

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

belonging to the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Leuciscidae Leuciscidae is a family of freshwater ray-finned fishes, formerly classified as a subfamily of the Cyprinidae, which contains the true minnows. Members of the Old World (OW) clade of minnows within this subfamily are known as European minnow ...

, which includes the daces, Eurasian minnows and related fishes. This genus is a widely distributed lineage of leuciscids and ranges from West Europe to East Siberia.

Taxonomy

''Rutilus'' was first proposed as a genus in 1820 by the French

polymath A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; 22 October 178318 September 1840) was a French early 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ult ...

with ''Cyprinus rutilus'' designated as the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

but also the type species by absolute tautonymy. ''Cyprinus rutilus'' was first formally described in the 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

with "European lakes" given as the type locality. In a phylogeographic study, Levin et al. (2017) argue that the Ponto-Caspian taxa including ''R. caspicus'', ''R. heckelii'' and ''R. stoumboudae'' could represent a single widespread species whose range extends to

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, to be named ''

Rutilus lacustris ''Rutilus lacustris'', the Pontic loach or Aral roach, is a species of freshwater Actinopterygii, ray-finned fish belonging to the family (biology), family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, Eurasian minnows and related fishes. This species oc ...

'', whereas ''R. kutum'' is included in ''R. frisii''. Levin, B.A., Simonov, E.P., Ermakov, O.A., Levina, M.A., Interesova, E.A., Kovalchuk, O.M., Malinina, Y.A., Mamilov, N.S., Mustafayev, N.J., Pilin, D.V., Pozdeev, I.V., Prostakov, N.I., Roubenyan, H.R., Titov, S.V. & Vekhov, D.A. (2017)
Phylogeny and phylogeography of the roaches, genus ''Rutilus'' (Cyprinidae), at the Eastern part of its range as inferred from mtDNA analysis.
''Hydrobiologia, 788 (1): 33–46.'' The genera '' Leucos'' and '' Sarmarutilus'' have been recently separated from ''Rutilus'' and are closely related to it.

Etymology

''Rutilus'' was chosen as the genus name by tautonymy with ''Cyprinus rutilus'', ''rutilus'' means red, golden red and reddish yellow and is an allusion to the red colour of the fins.

Species

''Rutilus'' contains the following valid species: * '' Rutilus atropatenus'' Derjavin, 1937 (Azerbaijani spring roach) * '' Rutilus caspicus'' (

Yakovlev The Joint-stock company, JSC A.S. Yakovlev Design Bureau () is a Russian aircraft designer and manufacturer (design office prefix Yak). Its head office is in Aeroport District, Northern Administrative Okrug, Moscow. It is a subsidiary of Yakovle ...

, 1870) (Caspian roach) * '' Rutilus frisii'' ( Nordmann, 1840) (Black Sea roach) * '' Rutilus heckelii'' (Nordmann, 1840) * '' Rutilus kutum'' ( Kamensky, 1901) (Kutum) * ''

'' ( Pallas, 1814) (Pontic roach) * '' Rutilus meidingeri'' ( Heckel, 1851) (Pearlfish) * '' Rutilus pigus'' ( Lacepède, 1803) (Pigo) * '' Rutilus rutilus'' (Linnaeus, 1758) (Common roach) * '' Rutilus sojuchbulagi'' Abdurakhmanov, 1950 (Akstafa spring roach) * '' Rutilus virgo'' (Heckel, 1852) (Cactus roach)

Characteristics

''Rutilus'', according to Rafinesque, was characterised by "''Vent posterior nearer to the tail. Abdominal fins with nine rays. Mouth large and with lips. Scales large.''" The smallest species in the genus is ''R. atropatenus'' with a maximum

total length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is the length of a fish measured f ...

of , while the largest are ''R. frisii'' and ''R. meidingeri'' with a maximum

of .

Distribution

''Rutilus'' is a widely distributed genus of leuciscids and fishes from this genus are found from Western Europe to Eastern Siberia.

References

Leuciscinae Taxa named by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque {{Leuciscinae-stub