''Oxygaster pointoni'' is a freshwater

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 ...

of the family

Xenocyprididae Xenocyprididae, is a family of freshwater ray-finned fishes commonly called the East Asian minnows or sharpbellies with a natural distribution in Asia. This taxon, sometimes spelt Xenocypridae, was previously regarded to be a subfamily, Xenocypri ...

from the rivers of

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

Habitat and diet

''Oxygaster pointoni'' is a

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean and can be further divided into regions by depth. The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or water column between the sur ...

species which can be found near the surface of medium-sized rivers. It probably has a similar diet to ''

Oxygaster anomalura ''Oxygaster anomalura'' are medium-sized freshwater fishes in the family Xenocyprididae, that can reach up to 200 mm SL(standard length), and are found near the surface in small- to medium-sized rivers in Southeast Asia, where they live off a ...

'' consisting of

chironomids 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 ...

and small molluscs.

Distribution

''Oxygaster pointoni''is found in the

Chao Phraya River The Chao Phraya River is the major river in Thailand, with its low alluvial plain forming the centre of the country. It flows through Bangkok and then into the Gulf of Thailand. Etymology Written evidence of the river being referred to by the ...

and

Mekong River The Mekong or Mekong River ( , ) is a transboundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's List of rivers by length, twelfth-longest river and List of longest rivers of Asia, the third-longest in Asia with an estimated l ...

in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

Human use and threats

''O. pointoni'' is not normally encountered in fish markets and this means that it may be exploited at only by at a subsistence fishermen. It is unknown in

aquaculture Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. Nelu ...

, so any fish harvested will be wild. It is threatened by the pollution and damming of the rivers it inhabits and the population of this fish has thought to have declined by 30% in the ten years up to 2009, which is why the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

classified it as "Vulnerable".

References

Fish of Thailand p Fish described in 1934 {{Cyprinidae-stub