Pachychilon pictum
species of fish
Pachychilon pictum, the Albanian roach or Albanian minnow, is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, Eurasian minnows and related species. This species is endemic to the Western Balkans and has been introduced to France and Italy.
Taxonomy
Pachychilon pictum was first formally described as Squalius pictus in 1858 by the Austrian ichthyologists Johann Jakob Heckel and Rudolf Kner with its type locality given as the Reka river in Montenegro. In 1882 Franz Steindachner proposed a new subgenus of Leuciscus named Pachychilon for this species, Pachychilon is now regarded as a valid genus and this species is the type species of that genus by monotypy. The genus Pachychilon within the subfamily Leuciscinae of the family Leuciscidae.
Etymology
Pachychilon pictum is a member of the genus Pachychilon a name which combine pachys, meaning thick, with chilon, a latinisation of cheilos, which means lips, a reference to the thick lips of the fishes in this genus. The specific name, pictum, means "painted", an allusion to the variously sized and located dark brown marks on the body.
Description
Pachychilon pictum has its dorsal fin supported by 3 spines and between 7 and 9 softs rays while the anal fin contains 3 spines and between 8 and 10 soft rays. The main feature that distinguishes this species from P. macedonicum is the many variously shaped and sized brown markings on the body,, with a dark midlateral stripe which fades on preserved specimens. The lower lip is thick with a long lobe in the middle.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q581310. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1858 and 1882.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pachychilon pictum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.