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A Virtual Museum on the State's Fish Biodiversity

Puntius chola

No common name
Collection Details

Specimens

Photos

There are no photos available for this taxon yet.

Records

Taxonomic Hierarchy

Actinopterygii (Ray-finned Fishes) Cypriniformes (Carps and Minnows) Cyprinidae (Carps and Minnows) Puntius Puntius chola

Description

This species account was compiled from FishBase (Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2025. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version 04/2025.) and processed using AI-assisted text extraction. It may contain errors in spelling, punctuation, or formatting. When citing, please reference the original source rather than this page. Learn more about our species accounts.

Characters

Body shape: fusiform / normal. Body deep and compressed; single maxillary pair of barbels present; last simple dorsal ray moderately strong and smooth; lateral line complete with 24-28 scales; scales from dorsal fin origin to lateral line 6 and those from lateral line to pelvic fin origin 4; predorsal scales 11, circumpeduncular scales 14, pre-pelvic scales 11, pre-anal scales 19 (Ref. 57399).

Distribution

Asia: Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar (Ref. 41236). Reported from Bhutan (Ref. 40882).

Habitat Associations

Freshwater. benthopelagic. Found in: streams, lakes.

Biology

Inhabits streams, rivers, canals, beels, haors, ponds and inundated fields. Occurs mainly in shallow water (Ref. 6028). Feeds on worms, crustaceans, insects and plant matter (Ref. 7020).
Max length: 15.0 cm TL; common length: 8.0 cm TL.
Reproductive mode: dioecism; fertilization: external; nonguarders (open water/substratum egg scatterers); parental care: none.
IUCN Red List Status: Least Concern (LC), assessed 2010-03-20. Resilience: High (K=1.00-1.10).

Commercial or Environmental Importance

Fisheries: commercial; aquarium: commercial.

References

Baensch, H.A. and R. Riehl (1991) Aquarien atlas. Bd. 3. Melle: Mergus, Verlag für Natur-und Heimtierkunde, Germany. 1104 p.
Talwar, P.K. and A.G. Jhingran (1991) Inland fishes of India and adjacent countries. vol 1. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam. i-liv + 1-541, 1 map
Pethiyagoda, R. (1991) Freshwater fishes of Sri Lanka. The Wildlife Heritage Trust of Sri Lanka, Colombo. 362 p.
Menon, A.G.K. (1999) Check list - fresh water fishes of India. Rec. Zool. Surv. India, Misc. Publ., Occas. Pap. No. 175, 366 p.
Vishwanath, W. and J. Laisram (2004) Two new species of Puntius Hamilton-Buchanan (Cypriniformes: Cyprinidae) from Manipur, India, with an account of Puntius species from the state. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 101(1):130-137.
Weliange, W.S. and U.S. Amarasinghe (2007) Relationship between body shape and food habits of fish from three reservoirs of Sri Lanka. Asian Fish. Sci. 20:257-270.
Plamoottil, M. and N.P. Abraham (2014) Puntius viridis (Cypriniformes, Cyprinidae), a new fish species from Kerala, India. J. Res. Bio. 3(7):1093-1104.

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