Endangered
Typhleotris madgascarensis
Typhleotris madagascariensis
Typhleotris madgascarensis is a fish in the family Milyeringidae that is endemic to Madagascar, where it is only known from underground waters in the southwestern portion of the island.
The ray-finned fish
This cavefish is blind and lacks pigmentation, and can reach a standard length of 8 cm (3.1 in).
Range and habitat
Typhleotris madgascarensis is a fish in the family Milyeringidae that is endemic to Madagascar, where it is only known from underground waters in the southwestern portion of the island. This species is known from more than 10 caves and sinkholes in the Mahafaly Plateau region, in places where the water temperature typically ranges from 26 to 30 °C (79–86 °F) and the pH is slightly above neutral. Although considered endangered because of its restricted range and not found to be common anywhere in its range in earlier studies, recent surveys found that the species is locally abundant, occurring in especially high numbers in the Andranoilove, Andriamaniloke, Lalia and Mitoho caves.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
The IUCN currently assess the species as Endangered, but it has stated that further research is necessary on the taxonomic status of different populations of T. Madagascarensis as the populations in unconnected cave systems may actually be allopatric species. If this is the case then the IUCN's assessment may require to be changed to Critically Endangered as the range for any individual species will be less than that for T. Madagascarensis sensu lato.
Typhleotris madgascarensis is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Typhleotris madgascarensis, Wikidata item Q5480659. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
