Fish That Live in One River and Nowhere Else
The Western Ghats mountain range runs roughly 1,600 kilometres along India's western coast, and the streams that tumble down its eastern and western slopes carry one of the highest concentrations of freshwater fish endemism on the planet. Of the approximately 290 freshwater fish species recorded in the Ghats, around 53 percent are found nowhere else. Among these, the cyprinids, the family that includes barbs, and the cobitids and botiids, the families that include loaches, make up the bulk of what collectors and exporters call ornamental species. A single river system, the Chalakudy in Kerala, holds more endemic fish species than the entire British Isles hold freshwater fish of any kind.
