New Species Found In Brunei
By Khairunnisa Ibrahim

Bandar Seri Begawan - Three new species of sucker fish or loaches in the Temburong river basin in Brunei Darussalam are among the 52 species newly discovered by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Borneo since July last year.

The Gastromyzon cranbrooki, G aeroides and G venustus were discovered during studies in Temburong by Dr Tan Heok Hui of the National University of Singapore, who published details on the new discoveries in a recent issue of the Zootaxa journal in cooperation with ZH Sulaiman from Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

The sucker loaches have flat brown bodies with grey or cream marks and other distinguishing features that differentiate them from the older species. The G aeroides, for instance, has blue fins while the G venustus has red ones. The WWF also reported on Tuesday that these sucker loaches did not look or behave like ordinary fish. Instead, they behaved like tadpoles in many respects. As freshwater fish, they were unique in that their enlarged fins enabled them to cling onto rocks in the fastflowing water.

According to Tan and Sulaiman, this extreme adaptation to life in torrential waters results from the poor swimming capability of the gastromyzon genus that has lost the ability to hover or swim in mid-water. Occuring exclusively on Borneo, the loaches live in headwater and hillstreams, and feed on algae and insects associated with these habitats. They can only survive in clear and unpolluted water and as there are only a limited distribution of each species, disturbance of their habitat will have a major impact on their total population.

The recently discovered loaches are among more than 50 new species of animals and plants that have been identified in the past year. Among other discoveries are a couple of tree frogs, a range of plants and trees and 30 brand new types of fish, including one that has made the record as the world's second smallest vertebrate.

The miniature fish, measuring less than a centimetre long, was found in the highly acidic blackwater peat swamps of Borneo. -- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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