The Indonesian featherback (''Chitala borneensis'') is a species of knifefish from freshwater habitats in Southeast Asia. The details of its range are not entirely clear, with

FishBase FishBase is a global species database of fish species (specifically finfish). It is the largest and most extensively accessed online database on adult finfish on the web.

reporting that it occurs in

Sumatra Sumatra () is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the list of islands by area, sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi. ...

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

, and the

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula is located in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area contains Peninsular Malaysia, Southern Tha ...

,. In 2024, it was reported to have been found in the

Mae Klong The Mae Klong (, , ), sometimes spelled Meklong, is a river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, o ...

basin and the eastern coast of

southern Thailand Southern Thailand (formerly Southern Siam and Tambralinga) is the southernmost cultural region of Thailand, separated from Central Thailand by the Kra Isthmus. Geography Southern Thailand is on the Malay Peninsula, with an area of around , bo ...

, while Catalog of Fishes considers it

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to Borneo. There has been considerable taxonomic confusion between this species and '' C. lopis''; it was argued as recent as 1992 that the two are variants of a single species, but later authorities have recognized them as separate.Kottelat, M., and Lim, K.K.P. (1995). Freshwater fishes of Sarawak and Brunei Darussalam: a preliminary annotated check-list. The Sarawak Museum Journal (New Series) v. 48 (no. 69): 227-256.Parenti, L.R., and Downing Meisner, A.L. (2003). Fishes of the Belait River. Brunei Museum Journal 10: 17–54. ''C. borneensis'' reaches at least in

standard length Fish measurement is the measuring of individual fish and various parts of fish anatomy, their anatomies, for data used in many areas of ichthyology, including Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy and fishery biology. Overall length Standard length (SL) is ...

.Parenti, L.R., and Lim. K.K.P. (2005). Fishes of the Rajang Basin, Sarawak, Malaysia. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology Supplement 13: 175-208. It is overall pale silvery-golden with many small black spots on the tail fin,

anal fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the back bone and are supported o ...

and lower rear part of the body, and a black spot behind the

pectoral fin Fins are moving appendages protruding from the body of fish that interact with water to generate thrust and help the fish aquatic locomotion, swim. Apart from the tail or caudal fin, fish fins have no direct connection with the vertebral column ...

References

Notopteridae Fish of Southeast Asia Fish described in 1851 {{Osteoglossiformes-stub