Triplophysa


Triplophysa is a genus of fish in the family Nemacheilidae found mainly in and around the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. Currently, the genus is a mixed assemblage of species. Some lineages have been identified and treated as subgenera, but as Wikipedia follows Fishbase for fish species these have been treated as subgenera in Wikipedia, although Kottelat and the Catalog of Fishes treat them as genera. FishBase, however, includes these in Triplophysa without specifying subgenera and treats the names given by Kottelat as synonyms.

Ecology

Triplophysa zhaoi holds the record for the lowest altitude for Asian fish: it is found at below sea level in swamps of the Lükqün oasis, in the Turpan Depression in Xinjiang. In the other end, Triplophysa stolickai holds the record altitude for Asian fish: it is found at above sea level in hot springs near the Longmu Lake in western Tibet. Triplophysa dalaica has been used as model species to study adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia and 13 positively selected genes involved in hypoxia response have been identified. Some species are blind cave-dwellers.

Species

There are currently 131 recognized species in this genus: