Following Rainboth (1996) distinguishing characters for G. fuliginosa include: presence of rostral and maxillary barbels; a well-developed, trilobed rostrum; possession of 10 gill rakers on the lower portion of the first gill arch; no mid-lateral body stripe; 32-34 lateral line scales; body dark with random lighter scales in places.

Kottelat (2001) states that the species can be told apart from other Garra occurring in Laos by a combination of: snout with a secondary rostrum, proboscis about twice as wide…