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Abstract.
Nonparasitic lamprey found in the Beli Drim River basin (Drin River drainage, Adriatic Sea watershed) represents a valid species Eudontomyzon stankokaramani Karaman, 1974. From other species of the genus Eudontomyzon it differs in its dentition, and the number and form of velar tentacles. This is the first Eudontomyzon species found in the Adriatic Sea watershed.
Key words: Eudontomyzon stankokaramani, Beli Drim River basin, Drin River drainage, Adriatic Sea watershed, West Balkan, Serbia
Introduction
Eudontomyzon is one of five genera that belong to the family Petromyzontidae occurring in the Palaearctic faunal region. Within this region the genus is composed of one parasitic and two non-parasitic species. According to recent knowledge, Europe is inhabited by E. danfordi Regan, 1911, E. mariae (Berg, 1931), E. hellenicus Vladykov, Renaud, Kott et Econom'idis, 1982, and also by a still unnamed but now probably extinct species of anadromous parasitic lamprey related to E. mariae known from the Prut, Dnieper and Dniester Rivers (Holcík & Renaud 1986, Renaud 1997). While the distribution of the parasitic E. danfordi, and the non-parasitic E. hellenicus is limited, restricted to the Tisza River basin (Danube River drainage, Black Sea watershed), in the former and to the Strymon (Aegean Sea watershed) and the Louros (Ionian Sea watershed) river systems in the latter, E. mariae is the most widespread species occurring in the watersheds of the Adriatic, Aegean, Azov, Baltic and Black seas. Three subspecies of E. mariae were suggested by Holcík &Renaud (1986): the nominotypic E. mariae mariae (Berg, 1931) (Neman and Vistula River systems and some rivers draining into the Black and Azov seas, except of Danube), E. mariae vladykovi (Oliva et Zanandrea, 1959) (Danube River except of the Tisza, Timis and Ccrna River systems) and E. mariae stankokaramani Karaman, 1974 (Drin River system). Kottel at (1997) considered all of them to be valid species. However, already Renaud (1982) and then Salewski et al. (1995) proved the conspecifity of E. vladykovi with E. mariae using their velar tentacles character. Holcík & Delic (2000) demonstrated the extreme variation of E. mariae in all morphometric and meristic characters emphasising the necessity to use the velar tentacles as the only reliable character for their proper identification.
Soric (1998) used velar tentacles in his paper on the...