Cave Balitorids....

[Mike Ophir]

Hi all,

While looking through some papers today, I came across a paper from Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters titled "Habitat, distribution, ecology and behavior of cave balitorids, from Thailand." As I read through this paper I found alot of information regarding the flora and fauna, however, is anything known about these animals behavior wise?
I know they rarely enter the aquarium trade because they are so hard to collect, hence their hefty price when they do make the occasional appearance, but im sure some one studied these fish more in depth.
Any thoughts?

Mike

[Jim Powers]

Someone posted a pic a while back, of a cave dwelling homaloptera that, I believe, would swim up small water falls. That type of behavior would allow the fish to move throughout a cave system.
It was typical homaloptera in shape but was pinkish white and, I think, without eyes.

[Mike Ophir]

Jim,

yea I think thats the same photo thats in this paper im holding in my hands.
They look like vert intriguing fish..I was wondering if anyone has done any behavioral analysis or something along those lines on them. I know that they were available here in Boston a couple years back for $200 each and in England as well I believe.

It would be interesting to see how they interact with fellow schistura/homoloptera species that are sighted.

Mike

[Mike Ophir]

Jim,

yea I think thats the same photo thats in this paper im holding in my hands.
They look like vert intriguing fish..I was wondering if anyone has done any behavioral analysis or something along those lines on them. I know that they were available here in Boston a couple years back for $200 each and in England as well I believe.

It would be interesting to see how they interact with fellow schistura/homoloptera species that are sighted.

Mike

[Martin Thoene]

You lookin' at me?

Homaloptera thamicola

A Nonn Panitvong pic of a blind cave Schistura sp. taken in natural habitat.



I think you will find Mike that almost all the cave-dwelling species are protected due to their specialized environment. I know on the Perfrd.com
site, mention was made of some of these fish reaching the trade and was met with highly derogatory opinions because of their status. Have to agree.

Martin.

[Mike Ophir]

And I am in agreement as well. It would be a shame to destroy an entire population of animals in the wild just to satisfy the "needs" of certain ppl in the trade. Much like the case is for the Botia splendida.

Better let them be and live in a symbiotic relationship with the flora and fauna that surrounds them.

Mike

[Jim Powers]

I live in a karst region with about 25 or so caves just in the county in which I live. The Northern Cavefish (Amblyopsis spelea) lives in this area with the Southern Cavefish (Typhlichthys subterraneus) living further south within the state. Both are protected. Not only would it damage the populations by collecting the fish, the very fragile habitat could be damaged by the mere presence of collectors.

[Mike Ophir]

Good point, Jim.
We dont want those pristine caves ending up looking like the polluted yangtze or mekong, etc...

Mike

[Nonn]

Most of the cave fishes in Thailand are protected species, included the Schistura spiesii in Martin's post. I have spent many hours in various cave fish habitat, sometimes alone and I would say that they doesn't seem to do much. I mean, this is only a few hours observation. Most cave Schistura, in dry season, tends to stay in the area where there is the least water current, I guess to conserve their energy. They float around sometimes, skimming the surface, sometimes just sitting still. They will swim away if you walk to ward them but will not react to light. They will swim toward somethings that break the water surface. This is very short one man observation. Someone really need to do some longterm study about their natural history, so that we know them better and able to conserve them better. It is however, a very difficult task and so far I don't know of any in situ cave fishes behavior study of any kind in any part of the world. Does anyone know of any?

There are priviledge fews in Thailand who obtain these fishes before they entered protected species list, thus have the license to keep some of these natural marvel. I would say that in aquarium, behavior wise, all cave fishes act very much the same, you keep one species and you know how they would react to the new environment, food, predation, etc. Thus, you can always treat yourself with the most wildly available cave species the Blide Cave Tetra.

There some exeptional cave fish like the Cryptotora thamicola , new genus Cryptotora was erected for this fish as a monotypic genus, that click to the verticle water fall. VDO clip can be view in the link below.
http://www.siamensis.org/video/C_thamicola.MPG[/url]

[Jim Powers]

I was in my favorite local fish store a few weeks ago and was checking out the blind cave tetras. The manager of the store was talking about how effective they are at finding food despite being blind. He showed me by putting ONE bloodworm in to the tank. IMMEDIATELY, and before any of the other species in the tank, the cave tetras went crazy looking for food. He added more bloodworms and the fish got even more frenzied. They would swim along the bottom and make runs to the surface in search of the food. If you look at them they have several small pores (taste receptors) along their body which makes them much more sensitive to smells than most fish. I wonder if these cave balitorids have anything like that or just use their barbels.

[Mike Ophir]

Great observations Jim. Yea I would be interested to find out if they too have a hightened sense of smell....they probably do, but I wonder if it would be better than that of other species of fish that we referer to as loaches.

I know that some species of deep sea fish have such an adaptation as sunlight there is virtually non existent just like in the caves..

Mike