Rhodeus amarus
(Bloch, 1782) · speciesAt a glance
Sources10 archives
Databases and archives Rhodeus amarus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation11 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility134 121 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI160 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics127 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The European bitterling (Rhodeus amarus) is a temperate freshwater fish belonging to the subfamily Acheilognathinae of the family Cyprinidae. It originates in Europe, ranging from the Rhone River basin in France to the Neva River in Russia. It was originally described as Cyprinus amarus by Marcus Elieser Bloch in 1782, and has been referred to in scientific literature as Rhodeus sericeus amarus. It is known simply as "the bitterling" in its native range, where it is the only species of its genus Rhodeus, and sometimes in the scientific literature, also, but this is technically wrong, being a leftover from the times when the European bitterling was united with its Siberian relative, the Amur bitterling, in R. sericeus. Properly, "bitterling" can refer to any species of Acheilognathus or Rhodeus. The fish reaches a size of up to 10 cm. It is found among plants over sandy and muddy bottoms in shallow waters. It feeds mainly on plants, and to a lesser extent, upon worms, crustaceans, and insect larvae. This species of fish was once used for human pregnancy tests. Female specimens were injected with the urine of the woman to be tested. If the woman was pregnant, the hormones in the urine would cause the fish's ovipositors to protrude. The fish spawns in clear, slow-running or still water, often with a muddy bottom. The female deposits her eggs inside freshwater mussels. The male sheds his sperm into the inhalent current of the respiring mussel and thereby fertilizes the eggs. The young hatch and remain protected within the mussel for about a month, eventually leaving the mussel as actively swimming larvae. Both sexes reach sexual maturity in 1 year, at a length of 30 to.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology1
Life cycle & reproduction1
Habitat & environment2
Uses & economy1
Other traits2
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Rhodeus amarus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Rhodeus amarus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
Record type134 121 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions9 of 22 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Bonn, DE | 470 |
| SNSB-Zoologische Staatssammlung Münchenlocation not on record | 75 |
| 41 | |
| Nizhyn Gogol State Universitylocation not on record | 14 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 11 |
| FishBaselocation not on record | 6 |
| University of Lodz, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protectionlocation not on record | 5 |
| Zoologisches Museum Hamburglocation not on record | 5 |
| Toronto, CA | 4 |
| ZSMlocation not on record | 4 |
| Helsinki, FI | 4 |
| Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientalelocation not on record | 3 |
| Paris, FR | 3 |
| Bavarian State Collection of Zoologylocation not on record | 2 |
| Musee d'Histoire Naturallelocation not on record | 2 |
| Geneva, CH | 2 |
| Brussels, BE | 2 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 1 |
| CASlocation not on record | 1 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 1 |
| Stockholm, SE | 1 |
| Tilburg, NL | 1 |
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Where the DNA of Rhodeus amarus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.