Barbus has a long history as a "
wastebasket taxon". Historically, most fish commonly known as "
barbs" were usually placed here by default. More recently, many "barbs" have been reclassified into genera such as
Arabibarbus,
Barbichthys,
Barbodes,
Barboides,
Barbonymus,
Barbopsis,
Caecobarbus,
Capoeta,
Carasobarbus,
Clypeobarbus,
Enteromius,
Hypselobarbus,
Hypsibarbus,
Labeobarbus,
Leptobarbus,
Luciobarbus,
Mesopotamichthys,
Poropuntius,
Probarbus,
Pseudobarbus,
Puntioplites and
Puntius. Thus,
Barbus is for the time being restricted to typical barbels, and only contains fishes from
Africa and
Europe, as well as adjacent
Asia. However, the genus even in the reduced version is probably
paraphyletic, and many African species (particularly the small ones) do not seem to belong here, either. Eventually,
Barbus is likely to be restricted to the group around
B. barbus – the large European to
Ponto-Caspian species commonly known as "barbels".
Luciobarbus and particularly
Messinobarbus are highly similar and might better be included in
Barbus again. They all seem to be close relatives – perhaps the closest living relatives – of
Aulopyge huegelii.
Carasobarbus and
Labeobarbus are probably closely related to this group, too, and some large
hexaploid barbs (e.g.
L. reinii) may well belong in
Labeobarbus. The small barbs from Africa, by contrast, are quite distinct. They might even warrant establishment of a new
subfamily – in particular if the
Labeoninae are not included in the Cyprininae –, as they seem to be as distinct from barbels and
typical carps, as these are from the
garras (which are part of the disputed Labeoninae), rendering the old "Barbinae"
paraphyletic. Within the small African barbs, several lineages can be recognized. These are mostly
diploid; a
tetraploid group largely restricted to southern Africa is very close to
Pseudobarbus and might even be included therein. In particular, the group called "redfins" may well be
monophyletic and belong in
Pseudobarbus entirely, instead of being split between
Pseudobarbus and
Barbus. ==Species==