Rhinichthys

Rhinichthys, known as the riffle daces, is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Leuciscidae, the shiners, daces and minnows. The type species is Rhinichthys atratulus, the blacknose dace. Rhinichthys species range throughout North America.

Rhinichthys
Loach minnow (R. cobitis)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Cypriniformes
Family:	Leuciscidae
Subfamily:	Pogonichthyinae
Genus:	Rhinichthys Agassiz, 1849[1]
Type species
Cyprinus atronasus Mitchill, 1815 [1]
Species
see text.
Synonyms[1]
Argyreus Heckel, 1843 Tiaroga Girard, 1856 Apocope Cope, 1872 Eritrema Cope & Yarrow, 1875 Pararhinichthys Stauffer, Hocutt & Mayden, 1997

One of species in this genus, the loach minnow, is considered Vulnerable. It also includes the extinct Las Vegas dace, which was only first described in 1984 and had been declared extinct by 1986.^[2] The cheat minnow (Pararhinichthys bowersi), a natural hybrid of the longnose dace (R. cataractae) and the river chub (Nocomis micropogon), was formerly placed in this genus, but is now considered by some authorities to be valid under Pararhinichthys, although this is regarded as a synonyms of Rhinichthys by Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes.^[1]

The riffle daces are a basal lineage in an insufficiently resolved clade of American Leuciscidae. Such a group had been proposed on anatomical evidence, and was verified using mtDNA 12S rRNA sequences.^[3]

Species

These are the currently valid species included in this genus:^[4]

• Rhinichthys atratulus (Hermann, 1804) (Eastern blacknose dace)
• Rhinichthys cataractae (Valenciennes, 1842) (Longnose dace)
• †Rhinichthys deaconi R. R. Miller, 1984 (Las Vegas dace)
• Rhinichthys evermanni Snyder, 1908 (Umpqua dace)
• Rhinichthys falcatus (C. H. Eigenmann & R. S. Eigenmann, 1893) (Leopard dace)
• Rhinichthys gabrielino Moyle, Buckmaster & Su, 2023 (Santa Ana speckled dace)
• Rhinichthys klamathensis (Evermann & Meek, 1898) (Western speckled dace)
• Rhinichthys nevadensis Gilbert, 1893 (Desert speckled dace)
• Rhinichthys obtusus Agassiz, 1854 (Western blacknose dace)
• Rhinichthys osculus (Girard, 1856) (Speckled dace)
• Rhinichthys umatilla (C. H. Gilbert & Evermann, 1894) (Umatilla dace)