Loaches Online Forum

Firstly great pics Emma , by heck theres a lot of em

Personnaly I'd say they look like the one we call Rostrata NOT Kubotai, and quite different to Mark's Burmese fish !

TheDarkOne went some way to explaining about Rostrata's in his Botia paper/article !

I think this is one of the easiest of the Botia's to keep , none aggresive and beautiful to look at , the Australian loach guys really enjoy these judging by their excitment , when seen for sale .

They really are quite variable and alter appearance as they grow quite dramatically ! as they grow they do get those anatomised spots within the stripes , giving them a slight look of B.kubotai ? but still quite easy to differenciate from each other ,Rostrata/ Kubotai.

Horray! I don't have to wait for all those pictures to load now to follow the thread

Emma Turner wrote:That would be great if we could host the article on LOL. I am still waiting on collection location. My supplier's wife had a baby this week, so he is not around to answer Q's at the moment. As soon as I have info, I will post it here.

TDO, I have a copy of your pdf on file, is it ok to upload it to the site? I take it you would like to be credited with your human pseudonym?

Emma

Yes, please use that copy and use my human pseudonym

Thanks Emma, Thats really interesting! They all look predominately like B. Rostrata but I can see a bit of all the "true" botia sp in them.

I would support the comments about regional variants. Thanks T.D.O. for your info.

Gah! All I have been able to find out so far is that these were caught '500km north of the usual location for Botia rostrata'.....

Emma

Emma Turner wrote:Gah! All I have been able to find out so far is that these were caught '500km north of the usual location for Botia rostrata'.....

Emma

I should be able to work this out once I have sight of my article (so I can remember for definite where they are usually caught).

My understanding is that most 'rostrata' that are in the trade are caught in various locations in Assam, usually near Goalpara and Gauhati (Guwahati). However they are know from other locations further north in Assam, and also in Arunachal Pradesh (see page 23 of my article). Therefore I would say this is further evidence (to add to their appearance) that they are the same 'rostrata' that we see in the hobby (which may not be the true rostrata).

Wow, that is a lot of pics.