T.xiangxiensis

The body is slightly elongated. The head is large. The caudal peduncle is low. The eyes are degenerate and there are no eyes on the surface. The front and rear nostrils are close together, the nostrils are large, and the nasal valve is well developed. The body length is 6.1-7.0 times the body height, and the body length is 5.5-7.0 times the length of the caudal peduncle. The pectoral fins are very long and extend backward to the base of the anal fin. There are no scales. The lateral line is complete. There are no color spots. The bony swim bladder, the posterior swim bladder chamber and the secondary sexual characteristics are similar to those of the Minxian plateau loach. The body length is 45.5-85mm.

Distributed in Feihu Cave, Huoyan Township, Longshan County, Hunan Province.
It lives in underground rivers, about 20m from the surface.

Xiangxi blind loach (T.xiangxiensis) is a fish of the genus T.xiangxiensis of the family Cobitidae. It is a cold-water cave fish that is only distributed in the Yuanjiang River system in Xiangxi, Hunan Province. It is a species endemic to my country.

In 1984, the blind fish was discovered in an underground river in Longshan County, Xiangxi Prefecture, Hunan Province; in 1986, Yang Ganrong et al. made a brief description of the morphology of the three blind fish specimens collected and named them Xiangxi blind loach. In 1992, Chen Yinrui and others from the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed the model specimen and renamed it Xiangxi Blind Plateau Loach according to the new classification system. Most of the time, it lives on the bottom, with its pectoral fins spread out, lying still or swimming slowly forward, and scattering when it receives a large vibration. It has predatory behavior, drilling its head into the gravel to find food, and stays still when the water temperature is below 10℃, with a white body color and basically stops eating.

Listed in the second level of the "List of National Key Protected Wildlife in China".

Protect wild animals and eliminate game.

Maintaining ecological balance is everyone's responsibility!

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