Clown Loach

• GeneralIt makes audible clicks and will sometimes lie on its side as though dead.
• It has an erectile spine below each eye that it raises in defence and that can snag in nets; it should be handled with care.
• It is one of the most heavily exported species in the ornamental fish trade and is still taken almost entirely from the wild, because breeding it in captivity is very difficult.
• It lives twenty years or more and reaches 30 cm, a far cry from the few centimetres at which it is sold in shops.
• It has an erectile spine beneath each eye that it deploys when it feels threatened; it can snag in nets and must be handled with care.
• It makes audible clicking sounds when feeding or when interacting with others of its kind.
• It is genuinely gregarious: kept alone it becomes timid and stops eating, and it needs groups of at least five.
• Almost all the specimens in the trade are still wild-caught in Indonesia, because breeding it in captivity is difficult and depends on hormonal induction.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (fish)

Habitat and environment

Tropical rivers of moderate flow

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Chromobotia macracanthus