{"id":90588,"date":"2026-03-01T11:17:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T05:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=90588"},"modified":"2026-03-01T14:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T08:55:07","slug":"gitchak-nakana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/gitchak-nakana\/","title":{"rendered":"Gitchak nakana"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Gitchak nakana Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A new groundwater fish species, &#8216;Gitchak Nakana&#8217;, has been recently discovered in Assam.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Gitchak nakana<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>new species of groundwater fish.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This <\/span><b>miniature, blind loach<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was discovered from a <\/span><b>dug-out well in Assam<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, marking the <\/span><b>first aquifer-dwelling (phreatobitic) fish recorded from Northeast India.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It belongs to a<\/span><b> newly described genus<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> within the <\/span><b>family Cobitidae (loaches).<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Named Gitchak nakana, the species draws from the <\/span><b>Garo language, \u201cGitchak\u201d meaning red, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">referencing its <\/span><b>striking blood-red live colour<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and \u201c<\/span><b>na-tok\u201d and \u201ckana\u201d referring to a blind fish.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It grows to just 2 cm and displays <\/span><b>classic subterranean adaptations, or troglomorphies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><b>no externally visible eyes,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a <\/span><b>translucent<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>pigmentless body<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><b>extreme miniaturization.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the most unusual<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">among other groups due to the <\/span><b>complete lack of a skull roof<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with the <\/span><b>brain covered dorsally only by skin.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>lives in aquifers, groundwater habitats<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> far more difficult to access.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While <\/span><b>more than 300 fish species<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> worldwide are known from <\/span><b>subterranean habitats,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the <\/span><b>v<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ast majority inhabit caves.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Fewer than 10 percent<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are known from <\/span><b>groundwater aquifers,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> making such discoveries rare.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiatodayne.in\/amp\/assam\/story\/new-groundwater-dwelling-fish-species-gitchak-nakana-discovered-in-assam-1352767-2026-02-28\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">IT<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gitchak nakana is a newly discovered blind groundwater loach from Assam, the first aquifer-dwelling fish recorded in Northeast India. Read more about Gitchak nakana, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":90615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5819,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-90588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-gitchak-nakana","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90588","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=90588"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90617,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90588\/revisions\/90617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}