{"id":107490,"date":"2026-06-10T13:19:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T07:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=107490"},"modified":"2026-06-10T14:49:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:19:47","slug":"eechathalakenda-incognita","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/eechathalakenda-incognita\/","title":{"rendered":"Eechathalakenda incognita"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Eechathalakenda incognita Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A team of scientists recently discovered a new fish species named Eechathalakenda incognita from Western Ghats of Kerala.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Eechathalakenda incognita<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>new species of fish<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> belonging to the <\/span><b>cyprinid subfamily Torinae.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was discovered from various <\/span><b>streams inside the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/periyar-tiger-reserve-ptr\/\" target=\"_blank\">Periyar Tiger Reserve<\/a>, Kerala.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>genus Eechathalakenda<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was originally established in 1999 for a<\/span><b> solitary, enigmatic fish species<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> first described in <\/span><b>1941 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">from the Pamba River in Kerala.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This newly described species had been <\/span><b>confused with Eechathalakenda ophicephala for the last 70 years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, it is <\/span><b>visually and genetically distinct <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">from Eechathalakenda ophicephala.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While<\/span><b> E. ophicephala <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">sports <\/span><b>rhomboid-shaped scale<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s, the <\/span><b>new species<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> features <\/span><b>circular scales near its upper body, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">alongside a <\/span><b>unique dark lateral stripe,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a different count of fin rays, and a substantial 4.9%-5.3% genetic variation.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their <\/span><b>geographic distributions<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are<\/span><b> exceptionally narrow; E. ophicephala<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is strictly confined to <\/span><b>Pamba river headwaters<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> over 1,000 metres above sea level, while E. incognita<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is isolated to specific <\/span><b>fast-flowing, rocky streams<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> inside the <b>Periyar Tiger Reserve<\/b><\/span><b>.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">E. incognita is the <\/span><b>ninth point-endemic fish species (restricted to a single location in the world)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to be identified <\/span><b>within the Periyar Tiger Reserve.\u00a0 <\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/kerala\/study-unveils-new-fish-species-in-western-ghats-solves-evolutionary-riddle\/article71080594.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eechathalakenda incognita is a new species of fish belonging to the cyprinid subfamily Torinae. Read more about Eechathalakenda incognita, Discovery, Characteristics, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":107477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8056],"class_list":{"0":"post-107490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-eechathalakenda-incognita","9":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107490"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107524,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107490\/revisions\/107524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}