- A unique fish has been found living underground inside drainage channels in dried beds, occasionally darting to the surface for oxygen intake
Pakistan Museum of Natural History (PMNH) has added 40 specimens of a unique fish recovered recently which can live without water, to its fish repository section, for identification and research.
The fish procured from Botanical Gardens, Nowshera during a routine yearly practice of digging and clearing of the drainage channels of Centre of Plant Biodiversity, is the first of its kind and have never been reported before in Pakistan.
A team of researchers from PMNH including Dr Muhammad Rafique, Rafaqat Masroor and Shabbir Ali Amir and another team from University of Peshawar including Dr Zaigham Hassan, Abdul Basit, Qaiser Jamal, Sawera and Baseerat visited the Botanical Garden for collection of data.
Dr Muhammad Rafique said that extensive laboratory work reveals that the species belong to fish family, Cobitidae and is commonly known as Oriental Weather Loach while scientifically named Misgurnus anguillicaudatus. He observed that the unique characteristic of this fish is that during dry periods some of its habitat may become stagnant with blooms of algae and resultant oxygen depletion.
“Under such conditions members of this genus are able to use its posterior portion of the intestine and skin as supplementary breathing organs and often dart to the surface to gulp atmospheric air whilst simultaneously expelling intestinal gases from the vent. Some species have even been recorded to survive periods in moist sand or mud in the absence of water,” he said.
He informed that this fish is native to Siberia, Sakhalin Island, Korea, Japan, China, Northern Vietnam and possibly Laos but introduced populations are now established in Germany, Spain, Italy, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Philippines, US, Canada and Australia.
This continuing range expansion is largely attributed to the aquarium fish industry although its use as a food fish or live angling bait are also thought to be contributing factors.
This fish is most commonly found in shallow, slow moving sections of rivers and streams or calm habitats such as swamps, oxbows, backwaters and paddy fields. These are often heavily vegetated or littered with submerged roots, branches and leaf litter, with substrates composed of soft mud or silt.
Furthermore, Dr Rafique said that this fish is an extremely adaptable species, tolerant of a wide range of physiological variables and flexible in its diet; factors which has established it as an alien species throughout the world.
He also stated that this species could become invasive with a tendency to spread widely, that likely or not likely cause environmental, economic and ecological harm. “This requires deeper research on the ecology, distribution and biology of the species,” he said.
The high reproductive potential and low vulnerability to predation have made this fish a cause for concern to conservation scientists although as yet there remains no proof of it exerting a negative effect on the native population of fish.