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The Chalakudy River runs in the South Indian state of Kerala and is known for its rich diversity. More on the Chalakudy here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalakudy_River

Two waterfalls are big tourist attraction in this area. The Athirapally and Vazhachal. I did a rather 'small' collection in Athirapally last year and landed a Travancoria Sp and a few Garra gotylas.

Athirapally was chosen as the collection spot. We reached the town of Chalakudy at around 5 AM and headed straight to the waterfall. Got down a coupla kilometres before the fall to check out the spot.



The first spot

The water was a clear and flowing. The temperature around 20 C. The river bed was primarily sand with a lotta boulders,rocks.Collecting here was a nightmare cos of the rocks and boulders on the bed. The species we spotted were :

Mesonemacheilus triangularis
Garra mullya
Garra gotyla
Barilius bakerii
Puntius fasciatus
Danio Sp


We were warned by the locals to beware of the Forest Department Guards crawling all around the place.

We collected our first fish in the second spot which was a few hundred metres upstream from the first spot.



Macrognathus aral???

Caught loads of Macrobrachium too.


With very little luck here too, we decided to hike straight too the falls as twas close to 11 AM by now. Stopped for an extremely fulfilling brunch consisting of Omlettes, Beef and boiled tapioca.


We decided to carry only our smaller hand nets to not attract undue attention.This is where I had collected the Travancoria and the Garras and so expectations were quite high. We spotted some humoungus Tor Sp and Barilius Sp. The water level was quite low compared to last time but collections still proved really tough here too.

Collected



Puntius species juvenile.

Note to Rupert and L Number Banana.The Danios here had fantastic orangish yellow on their dorsal and caudal. Im virtually illiterate when it comes to describing colours so bear with me. Black and blue are the only hues Im good at.


The Collection locality :



The flow here was greater but not the torrent twas last year. It was impossible to stand up without getting knocked back on the derriere the last time. Other parameters were similar to the first spot.

The Athirapally






Species Spotted :

Tor Sp
Barilius bakerii
Puntius Sp
Puntius fasciatus
Schismatorhynchos nukta (???)
Garra mullya
Garra gotyla
Danio Sp

This waterfall happens to be in the distribution of the rare Puntius chalakudiensis but they were nowhere to be seen.

Thoroughly irritated due to the lack of fish in our nets by now, we decided to head about 15 kms downstream to another town called Vettilapara. Some other people we know had collected here and had landed this guy :



To quote Michael Palin, I was foaming at the mouth and falling over backwards. This guy is in one of my tanks now. Anyone take a shot at IDing him????


This spot proved a little more feasible for collections. We managed to collect






Carinotetraodon travancoricus

Carinotetraodon imitator (???)





A splendid looking Aplocheilus lineatus.



The Spot.

The flow was much slower here and the temperature just a little bit higher. The river bed was the same here too.

All picture credits to my friend Madhu.

Twas around 3 PM by then we had to wrap up as we had a train to catch back. Whats a good collection trip without some good food????? More beef,Omlettes and Parotta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parotta). Parotta is a locally prepared dish and was my staple diet until a few years ago. Not healthy enough they say...... Bah!!!!!

I have heard of reports of a Glyptothorax species found in this area too and I think thats a good enough reason to head back in a few months time.

Wonderful post! I'll be very curious to see what Silurus has to say about that Mystus.
-Shane

Just a clarification. The Mystus was collected last year by some other hobbyists and was kindly gifted to me. Its been in my tanks for a coupla months now.

I too am curious as to what it could turn out to be.

Shovelnose wrote:Just a clarification. The Mystus was collected last year by some other hobbyists and was kindly gifted to me. Its been in my tanks for a coupla months now.

I too am curious as to what it could turn out to be.

Me too. That there is only one would lean me towards a sport colouration of an all grey - despite all my wishes it were a new species.

Jools

Awesome stuff!

I'm tempted to say a 'sport' would be a rare occurrance & unlikely to be captured as the only one of a seldom occurring species, ergo, the fish pictured is seldom occurring but typical?????

C'mon HH we await your wisdom...

I am not aware of any South Indian Mystus that looks like that. But then, Indian Mystus (particularly those from the south) is not a subject I have studied carefully.

Looks like very nice scenery, are there any dangers you must keep a watch for when collecting in this area? (besides drowning and the Forest Department Guards)

Jools wrote:

Shovelnose wrote:Just a clarification. The Mystus was collected last year by some other hobbyists and was kindly gifted to me. Its been in my tanks for a coupla months now.

I too am curious as to what it could turn out to be.

Me too. That there is only one would lean me towards a sport colouration of an all grey

Mystus

- despite all my wishes it were a new species.

Jools

Well what I hear from the previous owner is that it gets a lovely pinkish colouration once in a while. Il speak to him today and find out if there was any specific time frame during which this happened. It refuses to come out of hiding in its current
tank.

Silurus wrote:I am not aware of any South Indian Mystus that looks like that. But then, Indian Mystus (particularly those from the south) is not a subject I have studied carefully.

Il try getting some good pics and post 'em HH. Hopefully we are able to collect some more of 'em when we go there again .

Richard B wrote:Awesome stuff!

I'm tempted to say a 'sport' would be a rare occurrance & unlikely to be captured as the only one of a seldom occurring species, ergo, the fish pictured is seldom occurring but typical?????

C'mon HH we await your wisdom...

Thanks Richard. I dont see much of him right now. The rare swish of the tail here and there. Will shift him to a photo tank for pics next weekend.

Birger wrote:Looks like very nice scenery, are there any dangers you must keep a watch for when collecting in this area? (besides drowning and the Forest Department Guards)

Im guessing a whole lotta snakes. Not very sure of the herps there. Not exactly dangerous but we were threatened by some mean looking bovines. We had the last laugh though. Some of their brethren ended up in our plates later in the day.

Great account. I could never get tired about reading about exploring Indian rivers.

Shovelnose wrote:Note to Rupert and L Number Banana.The Danios here had fantastic orangish yellow on their dorsal and caudal. Im virtually illiterate when it comes to describing colours so bear with me. Black and blue are the only hues Im good at.

No photos

I do appreciate it is hard to get decent photos in the field though.

Are there any commercial fish collections made in this area?

Thanks Rupert. No pics sorry. Next time Il make sure there a lotta pics. Not that twas hard. Just that we were looking for some other fish and we just sorta glanced at these and let 'em be.

As for commercial collections, I really dono. This is a reserve area and there are quite a few guards around (I was let in with a hand net last year after I showed 'em a photo tank though). But from what I read on other forums and hear as well, the Puntius chalakudiensis is available quite easily in overseas markets. So I guess we can assume collections happen quite frequently. Not where we went, maybe further upstream or downstream.

Hey Shovel nose, You don't have to envy others, look what you got!!! Amazing, isn't it??? I wish I would be there to collect those marvelous fishes..

Hey Lal,

If I could get Sisorids as easily as you are getting at the moment,everything else would seem really drab to me. All the drool worthy fish are too far away.

That was wonderful, look forward to reading more of your posts
The grass is always greener eh? LOL

If I win the lottery someday, I'll show up at your door and be your personal slave for fishing trips as long as we stop for the food and danios.

Lucky you!

L number Banana wrote:That was wonderful, look forward to reading more of your posts
The grass is always greener eh? LOL

If I win the lottery someday, I'll show up at your door and be your personal slave for fishing trips as long as we stop for the food and danios.

Lucky you!

Dont worry. Fish on plates are only second priority to fish in the nets. Maybe you get lucky and end up with Danios in both.

More on the Mystus. All the Mystus with him (the previous owner) are churning out fantastic colours.








And this how the same Mystus looks like in my tanks :






Something to do with the water perhaps. These were ID'ed as Mystus montanus.

The reason why they're not the same color is because they're not the same species.

Oh. These were from the same trip. So I assumed they were the same species. What do you think the pink one is HH??

Wonderful post, my dad is from Kerala and often says "we have fish like that back home" when looking at my aquarium!

Where in Kerala wonword???

Sorry for the late reply, but he is from Thiruvananthapuram I believe!

Just saw this thread. Great collecting trip, that mystus look really similar to the pimelodus here! I really like the puffers.Great pictures, thanks for sharing