Garra imberba
is widely distributed in China. At the moment, both
Garra yiliangensis
and
G. hainanensis
are treated as valid species, but they were initially named as a subspecies of
G. pingi
, a junior synonym of
G. imberba.
Garra alticorpora
and
G. nujiangensis
also have similar morphological characters to
G. imberba, but the taxonomic statuses and phylogenetic relationships of these species with
G. imberba remains uncertain. In this study, 128 samples from the Jinshajiang, Red, Nanpanjiang, Lancangjiang, Nujiang Rivers as well as Hainan Island were measured while 1 mitochondrial gene and 1 nuclear intron of 24 samples were sequenced to explore the phylogenetic relationship of these five species. The results showed that
G. hainanensis, G. yiliangensis, G. alticorpora and
G. imberba are the same species with
G. imberba being the valid species name, while
G. nujiangensis is a valid species in and of itself.
