Main Article Content

Abstract

The land-locked country of Afghanistan has a restricted but relatively diverse ichthyofauna comprising 85 species in 10 families. The fauna is dominated by Cyprinidae (50 species) and other Ostariophysans (28 species). Eight species are endemics to Afghanistan within its political boundaries. There are three principal drainage basins: the endorheic Amu Darya draining to the Aral Sea with 29 species, the endorheic Helmand River basin draining to the Sistan terminal lakes on the Iranian border with 22 species, and the Kabul River basin draining to the Indus River with 44 species.

Keywords

Biodiversity Afghanistan Distribution.

Article Details

How to Cite
Coad, B. W. (2015). Native fish biodiversity in Afghanistan. Iranian Journal of Ichthyology, 2(4), 227–234. https://doi.org/10.22034/iji.v2i4.76

References

    Coad, B.W. 1981. Fishes of Afghanistan, an annotated checklist. Publications in Zoology, National Museums of Canada 14: v + 26 pp.
    Coad, B.W. 2014. Fishes of Afghanistan. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia-Moscow. 393 pp.
    Esmaeili, H.R.; Coad, B.W.; Gholamifard, A.; Nazari, N. & Teimory, A. 2010. Annotated checklist of the freshwater fishes of Iran. Zoosystematica Rossica 19(2): 361-386.
    Freyhof, J.; Sayyadzadeh, G.; Esmaeili, H.R. & Geiger, M. 2015. Review of the genus Paraschistura from Iran with description of six new species (Teleostei: Nemacheilidae). Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters 26(2): 1-48.
    Kottelat, M. & Whitten, T. 1996. Freshwater biodiversity in Asia with special reference to fish. World Bank Technical Paper 343: 59 pp.
    Mirza, M.R. 1986. Ichthyogeography of Afghanistan and adjoining areas. Pakistan Journal of Zoology 18(4): 331-339.
    Sayyadzadeh, G.; Esmaeili, H. R.; Abbasi, K. & Coad, B.W. 2015. Re-validation of Gonorhynchus adiscus and G. diplochilus (Teleostei: Cyprinidae) using morphological and molecular data. Zoology in the Middle East DOI: 10.1080/09397140.2015.10955 17.
    Thoni, R.J. & Hart, R. 2015. Repatriating a lost name: notes on McClelland and Griffith’s Cobitis boutanensis (Cypriniformes: Nemacheilidae). Zootaxa 3999(2): 291-294.