Leuciscidae

Leuciscidae is a family of freshwater ray-finned fishes, formerly classified as a subfamily of the Cyprinidae, which contains the true minnows.

Members of the Old World (OW) clade of minnows within this subfamily are known as European minnows. As the name suggests, most members of the OW clade are found in Eurasia, aside from the golden shiner (Notemigonus crysoleucas), which is found in eastern North America.

According to ancestral area reconstruction, the subfamily Leuciscinae is thought to have originated in Europe before becoming widely distributed in parts of Europe, Asia and North America. Evidence for the dispersal of this subfamily can be marked by biogeographical scenarios/observations, geomorphological changes, phylogenetic relationships as well as evidence for vicariance events taking place through time. Through analyses and evidence of divergence time, it was observed that the two monophyletic groups, the phoxinins and the leuciscins, had shared a common ancestor dating to approximately 70.7 million years ago, representing their lengthy evolutionary history. The 5th edition of the Fishes of the World classifies the Leuciscinae as a subfamily of the Cyprinidae but more recent classifications have resolved this taxon as a family, the Leuciscidae.