The Obscure Loaches Of North India
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What a nice thread this is
Balaji you are absolutely right about me ,I am very proud of you , the Chagunio look wonderful ,thanks for sharing .“Matt said:
I don’t think that the role of the site should extend to altering current taxonomy, even if, as in this and many other cases, there are convincing reasons to do so.True but if you think about it, we do end up following pseudo-scientific classifications such as L Numbers, LDA Numbers etc.
“andyrushworth said:
What a nice thread this is Balaji you are absolutely right about me ,I am very proud of you , the Chagunio look wonderful ,thanks for sharing .Hey Andy, thanks, long time!
This loach was collected along with the S.beavani and I have not been able to ID it down even to genus level.
@Shovelnose said:“Matt said:
I don’t think that the role of the site should extend to altering current taxonomy, even if, as in this and many other cases, there are convincing reasons to do so.True but if you think about it, we do end up following pseudo-scientific classifications such as L Numbers, LDA Numbers etc.
Yep.
That is a weird loach, somewhat reminiscent of certain Oxynoemacheilus spp. (not saying it is, of course)!
Andy! Great to see you around the place!
“Matt said:
That is a weird loach, somewhat reminiscent of certain Oxynoemacheilus spp. (not saying it is, of course)!I came across a few more similar looking loaches (poor pictures below) from another river system (Ganges Drainage). Would you say the caudal fin is weakly forked on all these specimens???? I was thinking on the lines of a Turcinoemacheilus sp.
If it is indeed Turcinoemacheilus, it might be worth looking into as it doesn’t appear to be T.himalaya, which is the only recorded species of the genus in this region.
I believe this is the ‘true’ Schistura savona.
Yeah, the addition of T. himalaya means that genus now has a pretty weird distribution.
Regarding S. savona, what is your opinion about the photos attached to our profile Balaji?
I can’t see any outward differences frankly but I would wait for the opinion of one of the loach guys on board. Considering the wide distribution of this species, it could also be a complex as is the case with a lot of these banded Schistura.
Collected these Lepidocephalichthys from the Ganges basin today.
The habitat.
Most of the specimens were collected from vegetation close to the banks.
I was thinking L.berdmorei too but the distribution threw me off, there is one more Lepidocephalichthys found downstream of where this species was collected. A few horrible phone camera pictures are all I have presently.
Pictured here with P.mackenzie.
They looks like the real L. annadalei
The caudale fits very well. There is a second species that looks similar but it has a little bit another caudal pattern. But also the dark spot in the middle of the caudal fin.
Thanks for the ID Thomas. There were two other Lepidocephalichthys species I managed to collect up north. One was the ubiquitous L.guntea while the second species was more interesting. It seems to match the L.cf. annandalei you refer to and was collected from near the Nepal border (Ganges drainage again). Two specimens were collected and sadly, the fish bag fell into the river when I was collecting, so I don’t have pictures of this species.
Female L.guntea.
The habitat, a small paddy field canal behind my home.
@Thomas said:
The guntea looks more like a male to me. Females are more mottled
Thanks a lot of your work!No problem Thomas. Right you are, it is indeed a male, I mixed up spots and stripes.
Next comes one of my favourite genera, Botia. To be honest, I haven’t kept many species as I primarily keep bagrids and all my tanks are “bottom heavy” as it is. I have kept B.dario ,B.almohrae and these specimens I managed to collect. I collected only 2 Botia specimens in the two years I was there, I guess this is due to the nets I used (dip nets) more than anything.
The smaller specimen.
The larger specimen.
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