Kallada

Barilius bakeri is a fast-swimming cyprinid endemic to the Western Ghats of southwestern India, with records from many rivers in Kerala and Karnataka. It is traded as 'royal danio', 'blue-spotted hill trout' and 'blue-dotted mirror fish', and has a single row of bluish-green spots that get smaller with age. Its well-oxygenated, fast-flowing rivers are being polluted and degraded by exotic species and sand mining.

The Malabar batasio, Batasio travancoria, is a bagrid catfish endemic to southern Kerala, India, in the Pamba, Chittar and Kallada drainages. Its darkish midlateral stripe and poorly-defined post-opercular spot separate it from B. sharavtiensis, the only other described member of the genus in southwestern India. Like its congeners it is an obligate inhabitant of shallow, fast-flowing, highly-oxygenated headwater streams.

The mascara barb, Dawkinsia assimilis, is a cyprinid from the Netravati, Chalakudy and Kallada basins of Karnataka and Kerala, India. The caudal-fin lobes are tipped with a black band about as wide as the eye, faint or absent in Kallada fish. Misidentified in the past as Puntius mahecola, it still appears on trade lists as 'mahecola barb', and some populations might represent distinct species.

Dawkinsia exclamatio is a cyprinid from the Kallada River in southern Kerala, India, and may be endemic to that river system. Rare in the hobby, it occasionally arrives as bycatch among similar-looking species such as D. assimilis. Two black blotches on each flank set it apart from the rest of the group, but there is a case that it is a natural hybrid between D. assimilis and a D. arulius-like fish found with it at its type locality.

Puntius mahecola is a cyprinid from rivers draining much of the Western Ghats mountains in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu states, southern India. The name was misapplied to members of Dawkinsia for over a century, while the fish itself was widely misidentified as P. amphibius. A relatively plain fish, it has a single dark blotch on the caudal peduncle behind the anal fin. D. assimilis and other Dawkinsia species appear on trade lists as 'mahecola barb'.

The Cardamom garra (Garra hughi) is a cyprinid from the Anamalai, Cardamom, Palani and Ashambu Hills of the Western Ghats, southern India. It appears occasionally in the ornamental trade, where it may be labelled 'chocolate algae eater'. The flanks are grey and the belly yellowish-white, with a conspicuous dark lateral band running to the caudal-fin base. It inhabits swiftly-flowing headwaters and tributaries.