4.4 | Atherinidae

Atherina caspia is widespread in the Black and Caspian Seas, where it is often identified as A. boyeri or A. pontica (see Vasil’eva, 2017). Naseka and Bogutskaya (2009), based on Tarasov (2001), treat A. caspia as a separate species. Own (unpublished) molecular and morphological studies support the Black and Caspian Sea populations as a distinct species from the Mediterranean A. boyeri, but fail to distinguish A. pontica (the Black Sea) from A. caspia (the Caspian Sea). A. caspica has been earlier treated as a valid species by Naseka and Bogutskaya (2009), while A. pontica was not. Here we also treat A. pontica as a synonym of A. caspia .