The Obscure Loaches Of North India

[Shovelnose]

Long time since I was here. I spent a couple of years in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand and collected quite a few loaches most of which could not be ID'ed down to species level. Thought you guys might like to take a look at them. I am not a photography whiz and being in the field and trying to take photos of the fish at the same time certainly didn't help as will be evident with the pictures below.















To start with, Schistura obliquofascia. These were among the largest Schistura I have ever collected (that photo tank is 4 inches in length).






Typical habitat.

[Diana]

NICE! Were you able to look at them under water? Any sort of viewing box?
Are you thinking the reddish-pale ones and the dark+yellow ones are the same species? Are the colors some sort of reaction on the part of the fish (light/dark, stress...)? Or different color morphs?

[Shovelnose]

NICE! Were you able to look at them under water? Any sort of viewing box?

No unfortunately, I purchased a waterproof camera only recently but I moved out of Uttarakhand in November last year.

Are you thinking the reddish-pale ones and the dark+yellow ones are the same species? Are the colors some sort of reaction on the part of the fish (light/dark, stress...)? Or different color morphs?

The lighter coloured ones were photographed many hours after collecting, that is indeed stress colouration. There were many such banded Schistura in this region most of which were a nightmare to ID.

[Shovelnose]

I had gone to Himachal Pradesh last year to try and collect Schistura rupecola. While I did collect a species of Schistura fairly close to the type locality, I am not completely sure this is the real thing.









The colours have actually faded quite a bit, the fins were stunningly red when collected on all the specimens (especially the larger ones).



The habitat.








Opinions???

[Botiadancer]

Wow! Amazing looking loaches.