Botia Lohachata

[adampetherick]

Bought a copy of Ornamental Aquarium Fish of India today and was quite surprised to read that the yoyo loach is recomended to be kept in pairs or trio's in this book. Also is Botia Lohachata or Almorhae the correct scientific name?

[Mark in Vancouver]

Botia almorhae is correct. Although some people insist there are two species.

[Mad Duff]

I got a copy of that book on Friday Adam and noticed that the Yoyo is named as Botia Lohachata but the book was printed in 1999 I dont know exactly when it was reclassified but I think it was since then. The other thing that I noticed was that the fish underneath looks very much like a Yoyo and is identical to one of the odd patterned Yoyo's that I got on Friday and it is listed as Botia Birdi

[The.Dark.One]

Menon (1992) considered lohachata as a synonym of almorhae, Kottelat (2004) left it as questionable. Andy Rushworth and I are part way through some work on this issue (including rostrata, javedi, birdi, dayi) and hope to be able to publish our views early next year.

[Mad Duff]

Andy Rushworth and I are part way through some work on this issue (including rostrata, javedi, birdi, dayi) and hope to be able to publish our views early next year.

Looking forward to it

[The.Dark.One]

Thanks. Not sure if we will solve anything for definite though!

[adampetherick]

it was the trio/pairs that I was mostly interested in as the general agreement on here was 5+

[Emma Turner]

Unfortunately, the suggestion given in the book to keep them in pairs is a little inaccurate as they are likely to continually argue. Larger groups will always help to spread any aggression.
However, I have much respect for Andrew (the book's main author) and would not take this to mean that the whole book is inaccurate, as it contains a lot of valueable information.

Emma

[mikev]

it was the trio/pairs that I was mostly interested in as the general agreement on here was 5+

Maybe this will help:

I have five here, and I've been moving them to the new tank, one by one. Thus, I was able to observe how one yoyo behaves, how two behave, .... One was simply depressed. Two were bickering and sitting in opposite ends of the tank. With three, two were bickering and one was hiding. The stable group behavior materialized at 4.
(I still have to catch and move the last one, he is proving very difficult.)

I'm not saying that 4 is sufficient, this is just what happened with mine.