The Obscure Cyprinids Of North India
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Some interesting cyprinids from north India. For starters, what I call Schizothorax kumaonensis. I was able to keep these alive in my tanks but they never really put on weight so to speak. These fish were found only in glacier fed rivers and made for excellent dinner!!!!
Juveniles.
Habitat in the Kumaoun Himalayas.
Dinner!!!
I had them both deep fried and made as curry and it was excellent both ways. Schizothorax spp are actually prized food fish that sell for 500-700 INR per kilo depending on the season, I got off easy collecting and eating them whenever I felt like it.
This next fish is a Salmostoma that I had to (unfortunately) preserve due to priority given to catfish during transportation from the field to home. I only collected these 2 specimens and repeated trips to the same spot haven’t yielded any others. Among the most stunning cyprinids I managed to collect up north.
The orange was more vivid in life and was present only in the lower half of the fins. I will be visiting this locality again in March and hope to bring back a few live specimens of this cracking looking fish.
Yup, I have no clue what species they are. I will try to take some live pictures if/when I collect them again.
The next one keys in perfectly with Crossocheilus latius and were much larger than I ever imagined.
This was among the largest specimens collected with the largest being a few inches longer.
These were from another river in the same drainage.
I actually meant the first ‘type’ keys in perfectly with Crossocheilus latius latius while I am not sure about the second type.The red at the base of the pectoral fin was an injury the specimen sustained when I collected it, these specimens too sported a lovely olive green once settled in. I gave one specimen to Beta who took a cracking picture of it, I will try to get his permission to post it here.
I will now post pictures of a sadly underestimated genus, Garra. I am not sure if there are experts on Indian Garra but I thought pictures might be interesting anyways. From Himachal Pradesh,
These are the Chagunius I was talking about earlier, the purple on the snout has actually faded quite a bit and was way more vivid in life. I will get pictures of live specimens when I am there again in May.
@Shovelnose said:
I actually meant the first ‘type’ keys in perfectly with Crossocheilus latius latius while I am not sure about the second type.Got it now, apologies.
Thanks for the new pics too – are both of these beautiful species unidentified?The Garra is unidentified while the Chagunius keys in perfectly to Chagunius chagunio.
Next comes Puntius guganio. I think it has entered the trade in the past???
Some of the specimens were much larger than I expected actually. These were collected in large numbers during monsoon and in ones or twos otherwise.
The badid is Badis badis.
Now for a commonly encountered barb, freshly collected P.conchonius (in life). I don’t see why we need any colours other than silver on barbs.
Superb-looking – a certain Mr. Rushworth should be interested in these.
Many small barbs were collected;ticto,cochonius/expletiforis and sophore were the most common of the lot.
A couple of terrible cellphone pictures of a conchonius/expletiforis that didn’t survive the (north Indian) summer of 2014.
An interesting looking Pethia from the Kosi river collected a few months back.
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