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| Channa bhoi Praveenraj, Moulitharan, Ryndongsngi, Thackeray, Naveen & Kumar, 2025 |
Abstract
Channa bhoi, a new species of snakehead fish, is described from the Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya, India. It belongs to the Gachua group and differs from all its related congeners in having a combination of the following characters: a unique color pattern consisting of a bluish-gray body with lateral scale rows possessing a single, minute black spot on each scale, visibly arranged as 8–9 horizontal rows of broken lines, more transverse scale rows from post-drop to anal fin, more pored lateral-line scales, and a grayish-yellow pectoral fin with 6–8 thin, ochre-yellow to cream bands appearing in a wavy pattern. It differs from all its related congeners by a genetic distance of 3.3–20.4% in the cox1 gene.
Jayasimhan Praveenraj, Nallathambi Moulitharan, Aristone M. Ryndongsngi, Tejas Thackeray, Ravi Shanthy Naveen and Annam Pavan Kumar. 2025. A New Species of Snakehead (Teleostei: Channidae) from Meghalaya, Northeast India. Ichthyology & Herpetology. 113(4); 712-722. DOI: doi.org/10.1643/i2024079 (11 December 2025)
