This species’ conservation status clearly precludes its suitability as an aquarium fish so it’s included here for reasons of interest only. It’s protected by Thai national law and illegal to remove from its habitat.

Species exhibiting morphological, physiological or behavioral adaptations to a subterranean existence are often referred to as troglomorphic.

Can be told apart from congeners by its colour pattern which consists of 8-11 closely-set, narrow dark bars in the anterior part of the body and 5 wider bars in the posterior part. It also possesses prominent dorsal and ventral adipose crests on the caudal peduncle and 9½ branched dorsal-fin rays.

Type locality is ‘Eastern Himalayas; small streams below Darjeeling and Sikkim, India’, and this species is only known with certainty from upland parts of Assam, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and West Bengal states in northern India.

Records from Nepal apparently require confirmation while it may also occur in Bhutan.

Type locality is ‘Tham [=cave] Phra Sai Ngam, about 200 meters from entrance, Thung Salaeng Luang National Park, Phitsanulok Province, Thailand, 16°37’22″N, 100°39’47″E’, and this species is endemic to the Tham Phra Sai Ngam cave system.

Tham Phra Sai Ngam is a limestone cave system about 1.7 km long and containing a subterranean stre…

It can be distinguished from congeners by the following combination of characters: caudal peduncle deep, ≥ the deepest part of the remainder of the body; no dorsal or ventral skin crests along the caudal peduncle; caudal-fin deeply forked, the outermost principal rays in the upper and lower lobes more than twice the length of the innermost: suborbital flap in males present; a well-developed suborbital groove in females; 6–8 very regular bars along the flank.

This species is seen in the aquarium trade on a relatively frequent basis and is sometimes sold as ‘bicolor loach’ in the United States.

It can be distinguished from congeners by its unique colour pattern comprising 9-10 thin, yellowish bars on a dark background in the upper part of the body, and plain whitish colouration in the lower portion.

This species has been collected for the aquarium hobby, albeit in small numbers at time of writing, but its identity is unclear.

Though obtained from close to the type local…

During collections of the type series stream width was found to vary seasonally but was never wider than 9.1 metres. Water depth was 10-40 cm, flow rate 20-70 cm/s−1, and substrates comprised small to medium-sized rocks.

Water temperature was seasonally variable but always within the range 20-26°C/68-78.8°F, pH was 6.5-7.9, oxygen 7.4-8.5 mg/l−1, ammonia, nitrate and total iron were 0.01, < 0.03 and < 0.5 mg/l−1, respectively, and alkalinity was aro...

The identity of this fish is unclear but it has been traded as Schistura scaturigina M’Clelland, 1839 but does not appear to be that species based on its original description plus Vishwanath and Laisram (2001).

The latter describe S. scaturigina as possessing a yellowish-white body with 12 transverse, triangu…

The identity of this fish is unclear but it has been traded as S. sp. ‘Laos redtail’.

Schistura is the most species-rich genus among nemacheilid loaches with some 190 members and it continues to grow with over 100 having been described since 1990. It may repre…