Collection Trips: Puntius denisonii, by Madan Subramanian

Collection Trips: Puntius denisonii

by Madan Subramanian of Bangalore, India.
www.indianaquariumhobbyist.com
Aquarticles

Had I but known how exhausting it would be to find and locate the Puntius denisonii in its natural habitat, I would have planned a longer trip rather than a trip over a weekend. The information we had was that the Puntius denisonii inhabited the beautiful country streams and rivers of Wynad in Kerala. There were no known collection stories or habitat study reports to go by.

Armed with this scant information, I was not really interested in going on a trip this year searching for the "Chorai Kanni " as it is known in Malayalam, the language of Kerala. (The name literally translates into "Bleeding Eyes" - a perfect description of the fish, where the red streak extends from just in front of the eyes to about half way across the middle of the body. Who ever re-named the fish "Red Line Torpedo Fish" needs a good whipping for discarding such a beautiful description).

However, when I realised that one of my wife's Ladies' Club members was from Wynad, I contacted her for information about the Puntius denisonii. She did not know anything of this fish, but further discussion led to her being able to arrange accommodation for us at the small town of Kalpetta, in Wynad. Now a trip was hurriedly thought of, and six of us had a talk: Adip, Karthik, Madhu, Trevor, myself and my son Siddharth, who is kind of getting to be a regular on IAH trips. The fact that the South West Monsoon (which normally sets into India on 1st June) was delayed by ten days prompted us to go for it.

We left Bangalore at 5:30 a.m., past Mandya (top right corner) towards Mysore (see map below):

The black lines indicate the route we took. Where the line ends abruptly we back-tracked.

Click on photos for enlargements, then go "BACK."

We stopped for breakfast a few kilometers after Mysore on the road to Nanjangud.

Finishing an excellent breakfast we continued on towards Gundulpet and turned into the Bandipur National Park. This part of the drive was a feast for sore eyes, through thick jungle. We saw spotted deer here.

The bamboo clumps around us would creak in the breeze, adding to all the innumerable eerie jungle sounds.

We stopped off at the first water body we found, looking for fish. Due to the pre-monsoon showers over the previous week the water was too muddy to view anything.

We continued on past through Bandipur National Park and on to Wynad Wildlife Sanctuary.

Here again we made a stop at the first stream we came across.

Some closer looks at the biotope.

We found numerous barbs, danios, loaches and Channa sp. here, along with tadpoles...

...and a well-fed elephant's download...

...together with some cute primates.

Here's a pic of the barbs we collected.

We continued on further without any more stops, and reached Kalpetta having nothing major to report. After checking into our hotel and a quick lunch we started off on the road to Calicut to continue our search.

We turned off the road to Calicut towards Meppadi, and drove past tea estates.

After a thunderstorm we landed at a picturesque spot called Kanthanapara Falls. That's my FCV (Fish Collection Vehicle).

Here are pics of this biotope, where we found the same barbs that we collected at Wynad Wildlife Sanctuary, along with Gambusia (mosquitofish), and zebra danios.

Some of the fish we collected.

Having not found the Puntius denisonii yet, we backtracked to Vyithiri and headed towards Pookod Lake.

This was another disappointment - we only found rohu and katla fish (carp family), and Aplocheilus sp. (killifish). We headed back to Kalpetta for a hard-earned rest.

I had planned the return route to be towards Manantavadi and on through Upper Wynad/Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary back to Mysore, but enquiries at Kalpetta revealed that the Puntius denisonii could be found around Panamaram and Iritty, so there was a change of plans. We decided to start early the next day, search around Panamaram and beyond towards Irrity, and return via Bramhagiri Wildlife Park and the fringes of Nagarahole National Park towards Hunsur, then back to Mysore.

We started at 6 a.m., and on an empty stomach reached Panamaram. We searched for the Puntius denisonii, but the water was deep and muddy. We could not spot anything here. Our nets brought up glass fish which we released.

Further on we stopped off at a bridge before Boy's Town, and again found Puntius mahecola (Indian tiger barb/ black spot barb), Puntius malabaricus, Puntius conchonius (rosy barb), Noemacheilus sp. (loach), and Aplocheilus sp.(killifish), along with the plants Cryptocoryne sp. and Acorus sp.

Continuing further, the road dropped off steeply. We climbed down 1000 feet in just 1 kilometer, into this valley.

After having a cup of tea and boiled eggs at this shack we continued on.

We drove into Kotiyoor where again we searched and found more of the above mentioned varieties of fish, but still no Puntius denisonii.

I was exhausted by the time we reached Iritty, but this was the place we had to find the Puntius denisonii. We didn't have enough time on our hands to continue searching.

Turning off the main road we headed down this path...

...which brought us here.

We finally walked to here under a 46° C blazing sun.

We saw more Puntius sp. but still no sign of the exasperating Puntius denisonii.

As often happens in rural India, local fishermen offered to help us and brought out their nets, but they warned us that due to the monsoon showers the water levels had risen and it would be extremely difficult to catch the Puntius denisonii; moreover the water was real hot in the midday and the fish would move to deeper, cooler waters.

The fishermen confirmed this spot as a place where they had caught the Puntius denisonii, so we tried our luck anyway, and came up with more barbs and a halfbeak-like fish about 8 inches in length with yellow fins and a greenish blue body.

The water parameters here on the Nerumpoyil River, upstream of the Pazchi Dam (which forms the second largest artificial lake in the world during the monsoons) were:
Temperature - 34.8° C
TDS - 30 ppm
Conductivity - 72 microsiemens
pH - 6.5
Kh - 0 ~ 0.5 degrees
Gh - 0 ~ 0.5 degrees

Still not satisfied, as we had not physically spotted the Puntius denisonii, we asked the fishermen for other locations. They told us of a place about 30 kms upstream of where we were. They offered to show us the way and so off we went towards Tellichery for one last place to search:

The water was knee deep and muddy. I was not able to photograph the fish under water due to the constant ripples, but here are a few pics of the biotope and our attempts to catch the fish.

Karthik was the first to spot the Puntius denisonii! At last after driving 250 kms beyond Wynad on our search we had found it!

There were very few Puntius denisonii here and we netted even fewer. Seeing their scarce numbers we let them be and did not bring any home, but all of us were happy at having found Puntius denisonii in its natural habitat.

The water parameters were the same as at the previous location mentioned above (very soft), except that the water temperature at this location was about 24°C. These fish are loners and not schooling fish, but as they grow, juveniles can be seen schooling. They inhabit streams with sand/mud bottoms and are seldom seen near the surface. To escape the midday heat they dive to deeper waters. The fish spawn with the onset of monsoons in June/July, and those that are available in the trade are collected around September/October as juveniles. They might spawn a second time in December/January when the water cools down further. The juvenile in the pic. must not be more than 3-4 months old.

...It was pretty late now and I anticipated a 8 hour drive back to Bangalore. I was worried and wanted to get on the way as soon as possible. I did not want to drive through a National Wildlife Park after dark. So we headed back, dropping the fishermen off at Irrity and continuing on towards Mysore and Bangalore.

Between Iritty and Virajpet I had to drive through the most treacherous of Ghat (mountain) roads that I have ever enountered. There was practically no road but deep pits for about 5 or 6 kilometers of steep winding bends. My car refused to move in anything but first gear for this entire stretch. I had to concentrate even more as the other five occupants of the car were fast asleep. How they managed to sleep with all the constant jostling and shaking when the car dived into the pits I don't know. I was thankful to be past this stretch and vowed never again to come by this route. The moment we got on to a decent stretch of road all five were wide awake - again how I don't know. In the Nagarahole National Park, my fears were justified when we spotted this huge guy:

I was all ready to take off if he made any move, but he appraised us and satisfied himself that we were harmless nature lovers and continued feeding, so I gave in to Siddharth's pleadings and took a few photographs.

Our trip ended with us reaching Bangalore at 10 p.m, exhausted after 800 kms of driving.

This is the first report of the Puntius denisonii habitat. I have tried my best to be as accurate as possible - any errors are solely mine. I hope the information here will assist someone to breed this fish and stop its exploitation in the wild.

There has to be another trip to find the Puntius denisonii soon! Any takers?