To test vicariant speciation hypotheses derived from geological evidence of the closing of the Tethys Sea, we reconstruct phylogenetic relationships of the predominantly fresh-water killifish genus Aphanius using 3263 aligned base pairs of mitochondrial DNA from samples representing 49 populations of 13 species. We use additional 11 cyprinodontid species as outgroup taxa. Genes analysed include...

Despite the ubiquity of terrestrial gastropods in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene archaeological record, it is still unknown when and how this type of invertebrate resource was incorporated into human diets. In this paper, we report the oldest evidence of land snail exploitation as a food resource in Europe dated to 31.3-26.9 ka yr cal BP from the recently discovered site of Cova de la Barria...

Aphanius pluristriatus (Jenkins, 1910) (Cyprinodontidae) is a poorly known species from Fasa, located in the Mond River drainage system, east of Shiraz, southern Iran. It has not been investigated since its first description, its validity has been questioned and a synonymy with A. sophiae (Heckel, 1849) has been suggested. In this study, we describe a new collection of Aphanius specimens from t...

When euryhaline teleosts are adapted to waters of salinities higher than the osmolality of plasma an increase in drinking rate has been observed (Lotan, 1969; Maetz, 1970; Maetz & Skadhauge, 1968; Potts et al. 1967; Shehadeh & Gordon, 1969). This is to be expected since drinking, and absorption of salt (NaCl) and water through the intestinal wall, is the only way for the fish to get water to ma...

The chromosomes of the Mediterranean killifish, Aphanius fasciatus from two populations, the Lagoon of Venice (LV, 15 specimens) and the Lagoon "Stagnone di Marsala" (Sicily) (SM, 48 specimens), have been investigated using conventional Ag-staining and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) with 18S rDNA probe. The two methods revealed variation in the number of major rDNA sites ranging from ...