Benue

The genus Barbus is in something of a confused state classification-wise. While there exist almost 340 putative species the vast majority of them do not appear to be closely-related to the genus Barbus sensu stricto. Berrebi et al. (1996) proposed that only the European, Southwest Asian and North African representatives should be included in Barbus (around 20 species) and that 'all species of Barbus sen...

Described from Assinie-Mafia in south-eastern Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), western Africa but currently accepted to be extensively distributed in coastal river drainages of central western Africa from the Saint John River, central Liberia to the Cross River drainage, in southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon. It also occurs in the Niger and its major tributary the Benue (Bénoué) and has thus been recorded from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Togo.

This species is also known as 'Gardner's Killi' and 'blue lyretail' and the commonly-available aquarium forms are perhaps among the best choices for those new to keeping killifishes being relatively hardy, colourful and easy to breed. A number of ornamental strains have also been line-bred by aquarists including 'gold' and 'albino'.

Described from 'Buala, Cameroon', which corresponds to modern-day Bouala in Central African Republic. It's known distribution includes parts of northern Cameroon, western Central African Republic, southeastern Chad and possibly eastern Nigeria in the upper Benue and Mayo Kébbi river systems. The specific name was mis-used to refer to various populations of the congener A. elberti prior to 1990, and we've been unable to confirm if the specimen pictured here is correctly identified or not. It is listed as 'endangered' by the IUCN.