Leuciscidae

Leuciscidae is a family of pelagic freshwater ray-finned fishes comprising the true minnows, shiners and daces, order Cypriniformes, formerly classified as a subfamily of Cyprinidae before phylogenetic studies resolved it as its own family. The family contains six subfamilies, Pogonichthyinae, Phoxininae, Leuciscinae, Plagopterinae, Laviniinae and Pseudaspininae. Members of the Old World clade are found primarily across Eurasia, with the golden shiner as a North American exception; the subfamily Leuciscinae is thought to have originated in Europe before spreading across Europe, Asia and North America. The two largest constituent lineages, the phoxinins and the leuciscins, are estimated to share a common ancestor roughly 70.7 million years ago, and the family own fossil record extends from the Middle Eocene to the present.