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The stone loach (''Barbatula barbatula'') is a European
species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
of fresh water
ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...
in the family
Nemacheilidae The Nemacheilidae, or stone loaches, are a family of cypriniform fishes that inhabit stream environments, mostly in Eurasia, with one genus, ''Afronemacheilus'' found in Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous ...
. It is one of nineteen species in the
genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
''
Barbatula ''Barbatula'' is a genus of fish in the family (biology), family Nemacheilidae native to Europe and Asia.Kottelat, M. (2012)Conspectus cobitidum: an inventory of the loaches of the world (Teleostei: Cypriniformes: Cobitoidei). ''Raffles Bulletin ...
''. Stone loaches live amongst the gravel and stones of fast flowing water where they can search for food. The most distinctive feature of this small fish is the presence of
barbels In fish anatomy and turtle anatomy, a barbel is a slender, whisker like sensory organ near the mouth (sometimes called whiskers or tendrils). Fish that have barbels include the catfish, the carp, the goatfish, the hagfish, the sturgeon, the z ...
around the bottom jaw, which they use to detect their
invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...
prey. The body is a mixture of brown, green and yellow.


Description

The stone loach is a small, slender bottom-dwelling fish that can grow to a length of , but typically is around . Its eyes are situated high on its head and it has three pairs of short barbels on its lower jaw below its mouth. It has a rounded body that is not much laterally flattened and is a little less deep in the body than the
spined loach The spined loach (''Cobitis taenia'') is a common freshwater fish in Europe. It is sometimes known as spotted weather loach, not to be confused with the "typical" weather loaches of the genus '' Misgurnus''. This is the type species of the spiny ...
(''Cobitis taenia'') and lacks that fish's spines beneath the eye. It has rounded dorsal and caudal fins with their tips slightly notched, but the spined loach has even more rounded fins. The general colour of this fish is yellowish-brown with blotches and vertical bands of darker colour. An indistinct dark line runs from the snout to the eye. The fins are brownish with faint dark banding.


Distribution and habitat

The stone loach is a common species and is found over most of Europe in suitable clear rivers and
stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...
s with gravel and sandy bottoms. It is present in upland areas, also
chalk streams Chalk streams are rivers that rise from springs in landscapes with chalk bedrock. Since chalk is permeable, water easily percolates through the ground to the water table and chalk streams therefore receive little surface runoff. As a result, t ...
, lakes and reservoirs as long as the water is well-oxygenated. These fish sometimes venture into estuaries but not into
brackish water Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuary ...
. They live on the bottom, often partly buried, and they are particularly active at night when they rootle among the sand and gravel for the small invertebrates on which they feed. It is found in
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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, the
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, and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. It has been
extirpated Local extinction, also extirpation, is the termination of a species (or other taxon) in a chosen geographic area of study, though it still exists elsewhere. Local extinctions are contrasted with global extinctions. Local extinctions mark a chan ...
from Greece.


Biology

The larvae of stone loaches are benthic, they and small juveniles prefer sandy substrates with a slower current, as they grow they move on to gravel bottoms and faster currents. As adults they prey on relatively large benthic invertebrates such as
gammarid Gammaridae is a family (biology), family of Amphipoda, amphipods. In North America they are included among the folk taxonomy, folk taxonomic category of "Scud (crustacean), scuds", and otherwise gammarids is usually used as a common name. They ...
s,
chironomid Chironomidae , commonly known as non-biting midges or chironomids , are a family of Nematoceran flies with a global distribution. They are closely related to the families Ceratopogonidae, Simuliidae, and Thaumaleidae. Although many chironomid s ...
s and other insect larvae. It normally feeds at nights when it uses the barbels around its mouth to detect its prey. They are tolerant of moderate organic pollution and stream canalization but they are highly sensitive to heavy metal pollution, chemical pollution and low oxygen levels which mean that the presence of stone loaches in a river is an indicator of good water quality. They are short-lived fish, normally living to age 3–4 years with 5 years being exceptional. Stone loaches breed over gravel or sand or among aquatic vegetation. In streams with low productivity spawning may be annual but where the water has higher productivity there may be multiple spawning events within a season. The females release eggs in open water, often close to the surface. The eggs drift and adhere to different substrates and are often covered by sand or detritus. A female stone loach may spawn each day for short periods. In Great Britain spawning lasts from April to August and the females may lay as many as 10,000 eggs.


References


External links

{{Authority control Barbatula Freshwater fish of Europe Fish of Europe Fish described in 1758 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Taxonomy articles created by Polbot