3 new fish species spotted in Arunachal College
According to a recent report, the Department of Zoology, Dera Natung Government College, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh has discovered three new species of fish of the genus Aborichthys of the family Nemachelidae.
They have been named Aborychthys uniobensis, Aborychthys barapensis and Aborychthys palinensis. The discovery has been published in international journals such as Asian Journal of Conservation Biology, Journal of Threatened Taxa and Fishtaxa.
“The three fish species are distributed in streams such as the Senki, Barap and Palin, which are tributaries of the Brahmaputra river system,” Prashant Nanda, associate professor and head of the Department of Zoology at Dera Natung Government College, told Down To Earth.
Earlier, from the early 1900s, 11 species of the genus Aborichthys had been discovered in the eastern Himalayan region. In addition, three of them were outside Arunachal Pradesh—Bhutan, Meghalaya and West Bengal.
According to Nanda, Aborichthys is an elongated and slender-bodied bottom freshwater stony lake inhabited by the medium to fast-flowing waters of mountain streams, rivulets and aquifers of the Brahmaputra river basin. It is endemic to the Eastern Himalayas.
This species is characterized by narrow oblique bars on the body with a black ocelus at the upper end of the base of the caudal-fin and rounded or truncated caudal fin.
Arunachal Pradesh, the land of rivers, is known for its rich biodiversity. The Eastern Himalayas is one of the four major biodiversity hotspots of India. It is endemic to more than 20 percent of India’s fauna, including fish species.
Nanda said that so far more than 250 fish species have been identified in this area, which is well below its potential.
He said that major rivers like Siang, Lohit, Dibang, Subansiri, Kameng, Noa-Dihing and many other minor rivers are flowing towards Brahmaputra river. It is expected that there must necessarily be a distribution of more fish species due to its diverse aquatic habitats.
In addition, many species have different local names in different districts of the state.
Nanda said that before studying the impact of climate change, it was necessary to document the unknown fish species of the Himalayan region. “These species are vulnerable to climate change because it changes their habitat,” he said.
3 new fish species spotted in Arunachal College
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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