Schistura mahnerti is a species of tropical freshwater

Freshwater

Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

 fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 of the family Balitoridae and subfamily Nemacheilidae.
It inhabits fast-flowing streams of Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 and Myanmar

Myanmar

Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....

 (Burma). S. mahnerti is one of the more recent species to be introduced to the aquarium

Aquarium

An aquarium is a vivarium consisting of at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, marine mammals, turtles, and aquatic plants...

 trade.

Other common names for this fish include the Burmese-border sand loach and red-tail sand loach. It is sometimes mislabeled in pet stores as a zebra loach or Burmese Border loach, which are both members of the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Botia

Botia

Botia is a genus of freshwater fish in the loach family . It was a large genus with about 20 species. In 2004 Maurice Kottelat proposed in his paper to divide the genus into four related genera based on fish appearance and locality:* Botia for Indian loaches .*...

.

Description and behavior

Red-tail sand loaches share common characteristics with its genus-mates in Schistura: elongated bodies, flat bellies and striped coloration. Finnage may take a reddish hue as the fish matures. This sand loach shows sexual dimorphism

Sexual dimorphism

Sexual dimorphism is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species. Examples of such differences include differences in morphology, ornamentation, and behavior.-Examples:-Ornamentation / coloration:...

 via suborbital flaps, present only in males. Movement is characterized by short, rapid bursts from one point to another. The maximum known size is 3 inches (7.6 cm).

The stripe pattern is common to many Schistura

Schistura

Schistura is a genus of ray-finned fish in the subfamily Nemacheilinae . All members of Schistura live in stream and river habitats; some inhabit caves.- Species :...

 species, complicating identification. Along with suborbital flaps missing in some other species, S. mahnerti has at least 9 caudal rays. The stripes resemble the split bands of a zebra

Zebra

Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...

 or tiger

Tiger

The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...

 up front, then turn into thick solid bands toward the tail

Tail

The tail is the section at the rear end of an animal's body; in general, the term refers to a distinct, flexible appendage to the torso. It is the part of the body that corresponds roughly to the sacrum and coccyx in mammals, reptiles, and birds...

.

S. mahnerti requires plenty of hiding spaces separated by visual barriers to distinguish its territory. Although it can be taught to accept flake food in captivity

Captivity (animal)

Animals that live under human care are in captivity. Captivity can be used as a generalizing term to describe the keeping of either domesticated animals or wild animals. This may include for example farms, private homes and zoos...

, it prefers a largely carnivorous diet of mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...

 larva

Larva

A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

e, bloodworms, and small insects.

Distribution

Schistura mahnerti comes from the Salween River

Salween River

The Salween is a river, about long, that flows from the Tibetan Plateau into the Andaman Sea in Southeast Asia. It drains a narrow and mountainous watershed of that extends into the countries China, Burma and Thailand. Steep canyon walls line the swift, powerful and undammed Salween, one of the...

, which flows from the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

 eastward as the border to Thailand and Burma.

In its habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

, the natural water

Water

Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...

 chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 has a pH

PH

In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...

 of 6 to 6.9, slightly acidic. Due to the fast flow of the streams, the water is well-oxygenated and the tropical climate keeps the water from 73 to 79 °F (22.8 to 26.1 C).