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 ]Baltic states
The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...
, Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
, Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
, Czech Republic
The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...
, Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
, Finland
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...
, France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
, Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
, Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
, Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein (, ; ; ), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein ( ), is a Landlocked country#Doubly landlocked, doubly landlocked Swiss Standard German, German-speaking microstate in the Central European Alps, between Austria in the east ...
, Luxembourg
Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...
, Moldova
Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova, is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe, with an area of and population of 2.42 million. Moldova is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. ...
, the Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
, Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
, Serbia and Montenegro
The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro or simply Serbia and Montenegro, known until 2003 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and commonly referred to as FR Yugoslavia (FRY) or simply Yugoslavia, was a country in Southeast Europe locate ...
, Slovakia
Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
, Slovenia
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...
, Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
, Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, 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