Identifying the Ancient Shibuta Fish.

The Talmud, a massive Jewish work completed in Persia approximately 1500 years ago, contains references to a fish named the shibuta . Various previous attempts to identify it over the last several centuries took place in lands other than Iraq and consequently the true identity seems to have escaped those Jewish scholars. In this paper we summarize the previous work and present evidence to support the identification of the talmudic shibuta with Barbus grypus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]