Rutilus heckelii

Rutilus heckelii is a species of roach, a genus in the family Cyprinidae. This species occurs in freshened areas of Black and Azov Seas, entering the Don, Kuban, Dnipro, Dnister and rarely Danube drainages.^[1]

Rutilus heckelii
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Cypriniformes
Family:	Cyprinidae
Subfamily:	Leuciscinae
Genus:	Rutilus
Species:	R. heckelii
Binomial name
Rutilus heckelii (Nordmann, 1840)
Synonyms
Leuciscus heckelii Nordmann, 1840

Newer research, however, suggests that R. heckelii is part of a more widely distributed species of roach, whose range extends to Siberia. The proper name of that species is Rutilus lacustris.^[2]

In Russia, other countries of the former Soviet Union and parts of Eastern Europe, this and related species of roach are commonly air-dried and salted to create a popular beer snack, known as 'taran' or 'taranka', after the Russian word for this fish species, 'тарань'.

References

1. "Rutilus heckelii". FishBase. Archived from the original on 19 August 2013. Retrieved 20 Dec 2021.
2. Levin, B.A., Simonov, E.P., Ermakov, O.A., Levina, M.A., Interesova, E.A., Kovalchuk, O.M., Malinina, Y.A., Mamilov, N.S., Mustafayev, N.J., Pilin, D.V., Pozdeev, I.V., Prostakov, N.I., Roubenyan, H.R., Titov, S.V. & Vekhov, D.A. (2017): Phylogeny and phylogeography of the roaches, genus Rutilus (Cyprinidae), at the Eastern part of its range as inferred from mtDNA analysis. Hydrobiologia, 788: 33–46.