The molecular and morphological studies carried out within the scope of this study revealed that the scrapers, known as the Mesopotamian group, belong to a different genus. The Paracapoeta gen. nov., from the Mesopotomia and Levant, is distinguished from Capoeta and Luciobarbus species by the presence of a strong ligament between the base of the last simple and the first branched rays of the dorsal-fin (vs. no or a very weak ligament). The Paracapoeta further differs from Capoeta by the last simple dorsal-fin ray strongly ossified in adult specimens (more than 75%, vs. less than 75%). The Paracapoeta further differs from Luciobarbus by the lower lip with horny layer (vs. fleshy lips). The molecular phylogeny based on the combined dataset (COI + Cytb, 1312 bp.) showed that the genus Paracapoeta was recovered from the other groups in the subfamily Barbinae with high bootstrap and posterior probability values (BP: 94%, PP: 0.96). Also, Paracapoeta and Capoeta are well differentiated by an average genetic distance of 8.02±0.78%. The morphological and molecular findings have largely overlapped each other. Besides, Capoeta turani is treated as a synonym of Capoeta erhani.