The value of certain morphological features in the age determination of the small mouth yellow fish Barbus Holubi [Steindachner, 1894]
Abstract
The oldest fossil records of fish in South Africa come
from the Witteberg Series in the Cape Province (Fig. 1) ,
These fish lived in the Palaeozoic Era about 250 million
years ago and had ganoid scales. They could have been fresh
water or marine forms. These fish gradually died out and
were later replaced in the Mesozoic Era, about 150-175
million years ago, by endemic genera. Fossils of these can
be found in the Beaufort beds of the Karroo System and they
were probably fresh water forms. These fish were all
destroyed by volcanic activity and drought. No fossils were
deposited during the Tertiary Era nor during the past 60
million years in South Africa. Only during the past one
million years have our present day fish moved down from North
Africa and Asia, into Southern Africa. The genus Barbus
(Cuvier and Cloquet, 1816) moved right down to the southern
tip of the continent where most species today belong to the
family Cyprinidae. This includes the mud fish and yellow
fish as well as many minnows (Jubb 1967).