Oxynoemacheilus panthera Common name. Damascus loach. Diagnosis. Distinguished from other species of Oxynoemacheilus in southern Levant by: ○ caudal very slightly emarginate or truncate / ○ lateral line terminating before vertical of dorsal origin / ○ usually a prominent dorsal crest on caudal peduncle / ○ 8½–9½ branched dorsal rays / ○ anterior flank scaleless or with few isolated scales, caudal peduncle with densely set scales / ○ suborbital groove absent in male / ○ body depth at dorsal origin 20–25 % SL. Size up to 77 mm SL. Distribution. Syria: Barada and Nahr al Awaj drainages west of Damascus; Lebanon: Litani drainage. Habitat. Standing and slow-flowing waters of springs and streams with mud or gravel bottoms. Biology. No data. Conservation status. EN; appears to be declining within its very small range. Remarks. This species is usually identified in Litani as O. leontinae, a poorly known loach from the Jordan drainage. The few individuals analysed from the Litani draingae host the COI sequences of O. namiri. Further reading. Krupp 1985d (description, distribution).

Published as part of Freyhof, Jörg, Yoğurtçuoğlu, Baran, Jouladeh-Roudbar, Arash & Kaya, Cüneyt, 2025, Handbook of Freshwater Fishes of West Asia, GmbH, Berlin / Boston :De Gruyter on page 525, DOI: 10.1515/9783111677811, http://zenodo.org/record/17881367