Banded karyotype of the cyprinid fish Leuciscus borysthenicus

The cyprinid genus Leuciscus Cuvier has a Palearctic range from the south-western-most tip of the Iberian Peninsula (L. pyrenaicus) in Europe, throught western and central Asia, and Siberia to the Amur River drainage in East Asia (L. walecki). The genus comprises more than 20 species with higher species diversity occurring mainly in Dalmatia and the Aral Sea regions. L. borysthenicus has a nearly "circum-Black Sea" distribution. It occurs in lower parts of river basins from the western Caucasian region along both sides of the Black Sea to the Thrace and eastern Macedonia in Greece, where it is confined to the rivers Evros, Filouris and Strymon Rivers. As far as we know, this species has not yet been karyotyped. The present report describes the karyotype, distribution of C-positive heterochromatin and location of nucleolus organizer regions (NORs) of L. borysthenicus from the Strymon River, Greece.