Striped mud carp

About

Found in the canals, ditches, and small streams of large river floodplains, Gymnostomus lineatus is a Southeast Asian cyprinid native to the Chao Phraya basin in Thailand and the Mekong basin across Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Thailand. It can be identified by five or six faint, thin stripes running along each flank, a moderately deep body, and a small pair of maxillary barbels. Notably lacking the rostral barbels seen in some close relatives. In the wild it is a grazer, picking through benthic algae, periphyton, phytoplankton, and detritus, with occasional zooplankton rounding out its diet. It also undertakes seasonal migrations, moving out of main channels and into smaller tributaries and flooded plains. A habit shared by several ecologically similar relatives that are important to local fisheries and traditional food processing in the region. The taxonomy around this fish has been genuinely messy over the years, with the genus shuffled between Henicorhynchus, Cirrhinus, Bangana, and Labeo in relatively recent literature, and debate is not fully settled. In the aquarium, its herbivorous diet means plenty of plant-based foods should be on offer, and its floodplain origins suggest it handles a range of conditions well, making it a workable choice for keepers new to larger cyprinids.