Hill stream habitats in Hong Kong are home to some of the most endearing and enigmatic fishes on Earth. These oxygen-rich, cool mountain streams or often, torrential rivers, provide crucial habitat, not only for exclusively freshwater dwelling species, but also form important migratory routes and nurseries for anadromous, amphidromous and catadromous fishes, those which migrate upriver, those with complex breeding strategies involving both fresh and saline systems and those which migrate downriver to the sea to spawn, respectively. One Hong Kong hill stream species which is particularly fascinating is the goby Stiphodon atropurpureus. From their striking iridescence, their adaptation of …
The Rio Files: Rheophilic species and their biotopes | Teleocichla centisquama
Teleocichla centisquama was described as a new species from the region of Altamira along the Rio Xingu in 2002 by scientists, Ivan Sazima and Jansen Zuanon. The following article includes excerpts from the species description and outlines a little about the habitat, plights and behaviour of this endearing, but highly threatened rheophilic cichlid. T. centisquama dwells on rocky bottom rapids with moderate to strong water flow, It perches solitarily atop boulders, where it maintains its pectoral fins and hind body in contact with the rock and often adopts a sigmoid posture(possibly to maintain hold in the strong current). On boulders …
Biotopes of Brunei | Beyond Wong Kadir
Located deep inside the Labi jungle in Belait District, our latest adventure takes us to visit three different waterfalls, each located in the upper stretches of the Mendaram River; our final research point was at the third waterfall, the location of which can be seen on the map below. On 24th March 2018 we commenced our journey at around 08:30, the sun was already shining but I assume that it rained the night before as parts of the road were wet and gradually drying. Before we hiked uphill, approximately 100 metres from the parking spot, we managed to come across …