PlanetCatfish.com

I see a lotta fantastic collections made here and thought a few from this side of the world would look good too. Valparai is situated in the Anamalai Mountain Range. More bout Valparai here:http://www.valparai.com/.

We started on a cold and misty Saturday morning from Coimbatore (bout 120 kms away) and reached Valparai at around noon. The first spot yielded what are the most beautiful Puntius fasciatus I have ever seen.They were collected from a small fast flowing stream running beside a coffee estate. The water was around 2-3 feet deep and the temperature was around 20 C. There was no vegetation in the stream.Unfortunately we didn carry any equipment to measure water parameters.




Pic soon after twas collected.





These pics were taken the next day and they seemed to retain their colour even in the aquaria (atleast to a decent extent).

Other species found here were Danio malabaricus and something that looked like Puntius arulius.


From then on, we spent bout 4 hours hitting every possible stream looking for some other fish. Absolutely zilch . Since Valparai is filled with coffee estates, the use of pesticides should be wide spread and the recent monsoons must ve flushed the damn things into the streams. We could find only P.fasciatus,P.arulius lookalike, Barilius bakerii , a Garra species and to all our collective disgust, Platies..... everywhere. Of all sizes and colours.

We scouted 3 or 4 more streams and started to get discouraged. The finall spot (Shekkalmudi) proved to be a goddamn gold mine.We reached there at around 5 PM and found :








Travancoria jonesii



Mesonemacheilus herrei

And finally!!!!!!!!!



Glyptothorax davissinghi (???)

I have been collecting in South India quite regularly but never has a trip ended with such a high note ever. I have this thing for Sisorids and collecting 'em for the first time put me in a haze for a brief period.

They were collected from a slow moving stream in Shekkalmudi Road, Valparai. The substrate was primarily mud with very little rocks. They were collected from inside bunches of a Lagenandra Sp found in abundance there. The fishes themselves were not plenty though. An hour's collection yielded 7 G.davissinghi's ,5 T.jonesii and 3 M.herrei's. Unfortunately we couldn collect longer as we were shooed away by the locals who were spreading sorta an elephant alarm. This is apparently quite common in this area.

This trip was made in the second week of December and 2 of us decided to visit the same place again. We headed there on the 9th of January. This time, we headed directly to the spot where we had collected the Glyptothorax earlier. After various delays we reached the spot at around noon. In case you thought this thread was gonna end on a happy note think again. Zero Glyptothorax. None. No stone was left left unturned literally but no sign of 'em. We tried some distance upstream and downstream as well but nope. We collected some big M.herrei,Bhavania australis (???) and Homaloptera menoni.







Homaloptera menoni.


Possible reasons for absence of the Glyptothorax :

1) Twas noon the second time. More heat ( though the water was a tad cooler this time around even though twas noon).

2) They have moved upstream or down stream.

3) Hoping this could not be the reason but we might have collected all of 'em from the spot during the first trip.


These Glyptothorax are doing really well in the aquaria. I ve had some really bad experiences with other SIsorids but this time its working out really fine. He s in a tasnk with some Pseodulagvia's H.jerdonii and H.hara. Water temperature is at around 23 C (with the help of 2 fans) at the moment. Dreading summer though.Ambient temperatures can hit 40 C routinely here.

All picture credits to my friend Madhu. All I have is a Sony Mavica and its ready to be shifted to a museum anytime now.

Habitat shots were taken too and will be uploaded in a day or too. Valparai though calls for another trip and this will hopefully materialise in a month's time. Pics of the fish in the aquaria will follow too. A few random shots around Valparai :

Absolutely fantastic! A Glyptothorax "in your back garden" And of course not forgetting all the other fish

G. davissinghi would be a good candidate - it's listed to have a distribution of "Kerala", which (in my unskilled reading of India maps) is near but not covering Valparai...

Can you post picture(s) in the "What's my catfish" section for Silurus to ID it...

--
Mats

I have already attempted an identification on another forum. See post #5 of this.

Ah, ok.

--
Mats

Richard

Well this 'back garden' is around 570 kms one way from where I live but thats not too bad considering the species list and we haven covered the entire area yet. More species waiting is my guess.
I have promised myself atleast one trip a month and 2009 was rather kind to me. Lets see how 2010 turns out to be. All future trips will get reported here as well.


Thanks for clarifying that HH. Forgot to mention that thread here. A few pics taken by my friend Beta of the Glyptothorax in his aquaria :








I have mailed more pics to the webmaster id.

I can get stone loach & bullheads (nemacheilus barbatus & cottus gobio respectively) 2 minutes round the corner, but i'd drive that far to catch my own glypto!!!

great report and fish- especially the glypto and the loaches!

Great thread!

Those barbs are stunning, and that must have been a real highlight!

I am told India is quite bureaucratic. Do you need permits to do this kind of collecting?

Fantastic report Shovelnose! Those barbs are gorgeous. There are some coffee/tea plantations not too far from here but I had not tried to collect near them for the same reasons you stated (pesticides), perhaps I'll have to give them a try.
-Shane

I have promised myself atleast one trip a month and 2009 was rather kind to me. Lets see how 2010 turns out to be. All future trips will get reported here as well.

This report is quite interesting and I look forward to others.

Can you feel the envy transmitting from my keyboard?

I particularly like the barbs too. Seems like new barb species are appearing in the shops, really nice ones.

Such a beautiful place! Such colors on the barbs and danios. We don't see those kind of colors. Keep up the great work!
Amanda

Richard B wrote:I can get stone loach & bullheads (nemacheilus barbatus & cottus gobio respectively) 2 minutes round the corner, but i'd drive that far to catch my own glypto!!!

My sentiments exactly!!!!!!

Carp37 wrote:great report and fish- especially the glypto and the loaches!

Thanks

racoll wrote:Great thread!

Those barbs are stunning, and that

Glyptothorax

must have been a real highlight!

I am told India is quite bureaucratic. Do you need permits to do this kind of collecting?

A permit should ve been procured ideally (dont think its easy / possible to get one though) but since we were collecting from an obscure stream running in the middle of coffee estates, we were never really bothered. Hope it remains the same the next time too. Anything that moves on land is 'precious' but everything else is considered just drivel here.

FYI, the most beautiful barbs I have collected are the Puntius tambraparaniei. Stunning is putting it rather mildly. My personal favorites are the P.narayani.

Ps : Loved your thread on the collection trip in NZ. First time Im seeing natives from your land.

Shane wrote:Fantastic report Shovelnose! Those barbs are gorgeous. There are some coffee/tea plantations not too far from here but I had not tried to collect near them for the same reasons you stated (pesticides), perhaps I'll have to give them a try.
-Shane

Thanks. Great to hear from you and yeah, those Barbs are something. Hoping the use of pesticides wont be as rampant there.

Birger wrote:

I have promised myself atleast one trip a month and 2009 was rather kind to me. Lets see how 2010 turns out to be. All future trips will get reported here as well.

This report is quite interesting and I look forward to others.

Thanks. There will be more quite soon by the looks of it. And how I wish Syno s were found here .....

wrasse wrote:Can you feel the envy transmitting from my keyboard?

I particularly like the barbs too. Seems like new barb species are appearing in the shops, really nice ones.

Ha ha. Oh yeah. Unfortunately Im not the photo clicking type yet. Im still hell bent on degrading fish with my rather bourgeoisie phone camera. Gimme a few weeks ( and quite a few pounds) and Il work on it.

On another note, there are new barbs everywhere here.

bronzefry wrote:Such a beautiful place! Such colors on the barbs and danios. We don't see those kind of colors. Keep up the great work!
Amanda

Thanks. Im not a barb or a danio guy yet. They re either too big or too docile for my tanks. WIll just end up being fodder eventually. Hope to set up a barbs only tank soon though. How your Hara's doing??

Unfortunately, the Hara's faded after about 8 months. I'm lucky they lived at all. From what I heard, the others in that import group died quickly. I wish I had better luck with them. I really enjoyed them.
Amanda

Shovelnose wrote:FYI, the most beautiful barbs I have collected are the Puntius tambraparaniei. Stunning is putting it rather mildly. My personal favorites are the P.narayani.

On another note, there are new barbs everywhere here.

Some pics of these barbs, plus any Danio you found would be great!

Shovelnose wrote:Ps : Loved your thread on the collection trip in NZ. First time Im seeing natives from your land.

Thanks, although its not my land. I'm English. (EDIT: actually, I suppose it is technically )

Some pics of these barbs, plus any Danio you found would be great!

Let me second that. I have always had a soft spot for Indian and Far East barbs.
-Shane

bronzefry wrote:Unfortunately, the Hara's faded after about 8 months. I'm lucky they lived at all. From what I heard, the others in that import group died quickly. I wish I had better luck with them. I really enjoyed them.
Amanda

Ah. That sucks. Im guessing they re a common import there though.

racoll wrote:
Some pics of these barbs, plus any Danio you found would be great!

The most common Danios here are the D.malabaricus and they re usually released back without even taking pics. Way too common.

A coupla pics of Madhu's P.tambraparaniei he took recently.









And a few variants of the P.fasciatus and some other Puntius species he has collected here.







BTW, none of the fasciatus in this post are from Valparai.

Shane wrote:

Some pics of these barbs, plus any Danio you found would be great!

Let me second that. I have always had a soft spot for Indian and Far East barbs.
-Shane

Lemme see if I can get some more barb pics from him.

And to keep the thread on track, some pics he took of the habitat of the Glyptothorax from Valparai :

On the last habitat photo, you really get a good feel for how lush the area is. I'm sure it makes collecting more difficult.
Amanda

The biggest problem was with the mud Amanda. Got disturbed very easily.So we had to shift between spots regularly. Then there were the leeches. Stuck onto us by the dozen the first time but strangely, only a couple during the second trip. Guess even leeches are onto hygiene. No bathing the second time around.

But right now, even man eating plants cant keep me away from getting into the stream again.

The stream doesn't look like typical Glyptothorax habitat, which is probably why you didn't get any more in your subsequent visit. Based on my experience with the genus, they are seldom found in such heavily vegetated streams. The only exception I know is G. callopterus, which can be found in lowland forested streams (but usually not heavily populated with aquatic plants).
The presence of mud/fine silt would also discourage Glyptothorax. My guess is that the fish were flushed from further upstream.

I ve always imagined the Glyptothorax habitat to be a raging hillstream or something similar so collecting 'em here was quite a surprise for me. Plus Beta collected at the same spot last year and he didn come across any Glyptothorax either.

Im guessing the same can be said of the Homaloptera and the Travanvoria too.
Will try to move further upstream the next time for sure.

A few doubts pertaining to South Indian Glypothorax :

i) Their max size seems to be much smaller than any others (even North Indian ones). Is this right???

ii) Are their any major differences in the adhesive apparatus of these guys when compared to others???? Weaker???

i) I don't think the South Indian Glyptothorax are any smaller than their northern brethren. Some northern Indian Glyptothorax can be quite small (e.g. G. pectinopterus).

ii) The adhesive apparatus seems to be about as well-developed as most Glyptothorax. Only species living in less torrential habitats (e.g. G. callopterus) appear to have fewer skin folds in the adhesive apparatus. This is also true for the northern Indian species with a spindle-shaped body (e.g. G. botius and G. telchitta), but these two species have a whole bunch of internal anatomical differences from other Glyptothorax (at one stage I was even tempted to put these two in their own genus).

Thanks for clarifying that HH. I had assumed the southern ones are smaller.

Il update this thread if I get my hands on more pics or if I make another trip there.

Thanks Shovelnose! What a fabulous write up. The fish are stunning but I can't help going back to that lush and sunny picture near the start, just want to drape myself over a hot rock there and soak it all in like a crazy lizard. Minus 14c here right now.

I'm also eager to see Danio pics when you get them.

Thanks. Will add more pics when I get 'em. Went on another trip and sighted some awesome looking Danios. No pics were possible though.

Nice pics, you are lucky that you have beautiful fishes around you, I wish i can collect those

You have the true beauties swimming around in streams near your house Lal. All I have near my house are Tilapia and then, some more Tilapias.

Made another small trip to this location to see if we could find the Glyptothorax again. Since Valparai is in the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, it receives extremely heavy rainfall almost continuously between June (beginning of Kerala monsoon) to December (end of Tamil Nadu monsoon).

There was a lot of chance that this trip could have been poured out but we decided to go ahead anyways.

We reached the foothills at around 8 am and started the long climb ahead. The roads here are good but there are 40 hair pin bends on the way to the top. So yes, it took a while.



A small section of the mist filled road on the way. This was at around 9 am.

We decided to head straight to Shekkalmudi as this place was where all the exciting fish were collected on both the previous trips.









The spot had lost most of the Lagenandra on the banks. There were small bunches in the stream itself. The water level itself had not risen at all. The flow though, had increased greatly and there were a lot more rocks. This gave me high hopes of finding the fish here.

But yes, the fish did me in sideways as usual. No Glyptothorax or Homaloptera or Bhavania were collected in this spot.

The fish collected were Devario malabricus, Puntius fasciatus, Garra Sp. and a Mesonemacheilus Sp. M.herrei is what we have collected here in the past but the specimen collected this time around is too small to make out an ID. P.fasciatus were the most prominent fish this time. Every swipe bought out atleast 2 or 3 of 'em.

No Barilius this time around either. Just as we were scouting around, we realized the estate workers were spraying pesticide on the tea plantations. It had been raining heavily here too. So I guess the missing fish could be attributed to this in addition to the change in seasons.



A lovely D.malabricus.


We then headed to a second spot which yielded only P.fasciatus. I have always wanted to follow the Glyptothorax stream further uphill and see where it originates as HH had pointed out that these fish might have been flushed downstream.

After asking around, we came to know that the stream originated in the core of the forest and there was a path till the edge of the forest.

Heading upstream, we found the same stream flowing with greater vigour. Just as we were choosing the best spot to collect in, we got our second slap in the face. A bunch of forest rangers turned up and started questioning us.

Luckily, their suspicion was short lived but they shooed us away from here in a polite manner. There is a whole bunch of smuggling and poaching going on here and we felt it was best we didn't argue with 'em and move on.

So we decided to head down and check out a stream at the base of the hills.

Some pics en route.







The plantations.







The best thing that happened on the trip for me. My first upclose encounter with a Nilgiri Tahr (Nilgiritragus hylocrius),the state animal of Tamil Nadu.





The view en route.

Fourty more bends later, we were back downhill, literally. I frankly had no expectations from this spot at all since it was at the base of the hills. I really didn't expect to see a fast flowing stream. I expected a wussy plant laden stream with shrimps and Killies and soap covers.

But I was way off mark. The spot was beautiful, isolated and the water was really cold!!!! An excellent combination if you have my taste in fish!!!!!







The spot.


The catch here was Puntius fasciatus (getting on my nerves now. All the "Oooooh!!! Look at the colours" remarks changed to "Damn vermins!!!! ), a Garra Sp, and a Travancoria/Bhavania Sp.



Prime male P.fasciatus.



Travancoria/Bhavania. Havent had a chance to take a closer look at specimens as I didn't bring any back. Expecting a clearer video from a friend who took 'em home.

There were small congregations of these hillstream loaches. Most of these were around an inch in length.

I love loaches but I was after cats!!!! This stream fell down 'bout a hundred feet and then flowed evenly. There was more current there plus lotsa shade too. The climb down wasn't easy at all though.







We had to slide down for most parts. Me sit upon isn't too pleased with what I had to put it through. Especially after we encountered thorny shrubs while sliding down.

This spot had more hillstream loaches. Just as we were giving up, I spotted a small loach which looked like something from Nemacheilinae.
Everytime I tried to catch it, it would bury itself. This excited me even more as the last time this happened, I had a Nemachilichthys Sp in my net.

So I asked a friend to come down with a torch (water proof and really useful). Fifteen mintues later, the torch was put to use and we sighted the loach again.

Once it buried itself, I lifted it up with the sand and guess what it turned out to be. An effing Lepidocephalichthys thermalis!!!! All the effort, blood shed, thorns in naughty places to catch a loach which we could have collected 'bout five minutes away from any of our homes!!!!

It was really dark by this time and we decided to call it quits. Plus this area had routine sightings of elephants,leopards and slender loris in the nights. I really don't mind the third one but the first two after sunlight doesn't sound like a date I wouldn't enjoy at all.

I have since (this trip happened the day before) asked around for permission and it looks like there is a bright chance that another trip is likely to happen end of this year with permission hopefully.

Till then, its just staring at pics of the Anamalai Hills.

A few pics of the Balitorid taken by my friend Krishna in his aquaria.