Two new-to-science subterranean fishes reveal a hidden world underneath

A decade ago, Wimarithy K. Marak, a resident of Assam’s Goalpara district, often used to encounter a small pink creature in her neighbourhood’s wells. She simply thought of it as a worm infesting her locality. In 2021, after she became a researcher, she stumbled upon the creature again while drawing water from a well. “This time I sent the picture to my supervisor and we brought a specimen to the lab,” she says. The creature turned out to be a two-centimetre long blind loach with a body so transparent that its blood and internal organs give it a striking blood-red appearance. The first specimen was collected in March 2021. Although further explorations into neighbouring wells yielded no results for the now described Gitchak nakana, the team of researchers had requested village residents to alert Marak if they came across anything unusual in their wells. Much later in 2024, when one of Marak’s relatives was cleaning his well, he came across what seemed like a worm. “My relatives had fully drained the well and that is when they found a  specimen of another subterranean species,” she says. Named Rakthamichthys anchi, the holotype, measuring around 310 mm, was collected in May 2024. R. anchi is a slender eel-like fish which shares characteristics with Gitchak nakana. Researchers then published two papers earlier this year describing both the species. Kangjam Velentia, a co-author of both the studies, says that the wells from which the specimens have been collected are kept very clean and often…This article was originally published on Mongabay