Diagnostics of morphologically close species of Far Eastern Redfins, genus Tribolodon (Osteichthyes: Cyprinidae), by scale structure

Abstract

An analysis of the structure of scales from two morphologically close species of Far Eastern redfins, genus Tribolodon, has shown that their species affiliation can be diagnosed not only in adults, but also in immature individuals. The most pronounced inter-species differences between redfins have been observed using a combination of three basic parameters of scales from fish with different body sizes: the lesser diameter, greater diameter, and the number of radii. Since the scale parameters exhibit a non-linear relationship with the body size, the basic parameters were logarithmically transformed for the analysis.