Spined loach. A revision

[Vagabond]

At Chris Plum's request and for the benefit of anyone else  interested  here's a revision  of a few points about the Spined Loach,    Cobitis taenia, as there is a lot of misleading stuff out there.

Let us start with Isaac Walton (165 3)

Honest Isaac does  not differentiate  between the two  British loaches, and   everything he says is true of the Stone Loach, Noemacheilus barbaratulus

Next up is Parson Houghton (1879) who tells us the habits of the two loaches is "probably similar" 

Leaving out the detailed works of the⁹ Georgian and  Victorian ichthyologists  Gunther, Yarrell, etc, the next popular guide is Tate Regan (1911)   He tells us that the spines on the head (about 1 to 2 .mm long) "are used as weapons"  (!).   He also dismisses the spined loach as worthless as food, no value,  " and  it's scarcity need  not concern us". Lazy thinking.

  Travis Jenkins (1925) is  sort of rewrite of Tate Regan and adds  nothing new.

Schindler (1957) tells us a little more, that the eggs are laid on water plants, and that it spends the days  buried in  silt, emerging at night to feed.

Wheeler (1992) tells us that little is known about its biology or diet but repeats the story of it being buried in sand

Maitland (1992)  At last we are getting somewhere.  Stomach contents of spined loach from rivers and gravel pits compared, daytime feeding observed.  I recommend Freshwater Fishes by Maitland and Campbell..  New Naturalists Library 

I will do a piece on my own  experience of these fish in a day or so.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Vagabond
Had not finished. My phone jumped the gun

[Martin56]

I used to own a tropical fish tank or 2 as a boy & we had a Coolie Loach, which we saw darting around the tank around twice a year!! Then it was conspicuous by its absence for the rest of it!!

[Chris Plumb]

Thanks Dave - I remember as a young boy catching (by net) both species of loach from The Witham when we lived in Grantham - will dig out what Mark Everard has to say about them in his Little Book of Little Fishes!

[Vagabond]

19 hours ago, Chris Plumb said:

Thanks Dave - I remember as a young boy catching (by net) both species of loach from The Witham when we lived in Grantham - will dig out what Mark Everard has to say about them in his Little Book of Little Fishes!

Thanks Chris for reminding me of Mark Everard, have some of his books on my reading list.

Back to loaches. Several guides imply the two fish are similar in form and habits.  Misleading - the Stone loach is "gudgeon-shaped"  ie shaped for  sitting on sandy/silty/gravelly substrates.

By contrast, the Spined loach has a more cylindrical body,  in fact it  is slightly oval in cross section with the long axis top to bottom. Ie adapted to wriggling through things such as weed beds and sandy sediments.    The spines by the eyes  are not "weapons"  (Tate Regan) but simply a means of anchoring the fish in a  algal or weed bed in a moderate current.  (If in biology one can relate form to function, one is probably on the right track).

Like Chris, I found my Spined loach in a clear stream - in fact the  upper reaches of  the  Great Ouse.  Initially the fish were  spotted in weed beds and   captured by netting a load of weed with a landing  net, but later I caught them on "rod and line"  (top joint of roach pole, 2lb line, spade end 24, piece of gammarid shrimp).  I kept some in home aquaria (cold water) for some years -they lived about 12 to 24 months after capture and were very lively.  I supplied plenty of dense weed (Niias  spp)  and the fish  spent most of their time in it and showed no desire to  burrow in the coarse sand on the bottom.  What I should have done is remove  the weed for spell, and see if burrowing took place.  Ah, the benefit of hindsight!  

The kuhli loach in my tropical tanks, like Martin's, were always burrowing.

I  have never found a spined loach in stream or lake sediments, and I have trawled/netted quite a few, in search of baits from bloodworm to crayfish

All this was back in the  1960s and 1970s . There was a closed season then, so where the loach were in spring and early summer I know not.  They were certainly in weedbeds from late June to September.

Athough spined loach are found across Europe and Asia to China, they seem confined to Eastern watersheds in Britain. 

I haven't seen one for nearly 50 years - would be pleased to hear from anyone who has.

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by Vagabond
Correcting typos

[Martin56]

There used to be Loach in the Rodley Canal near Leeds, we never fished for them in earnest, but would sometimes dangle a maggot with a bit of line & 22 hook & watch them chasing it under our feet!!

[Ken L]

No spined loach hereabouts, and stone loach are pretty uncommon. I did one see a huge one netted out of a stream in Sutton Park. It was a good while ago, but my memory tells me that that fish would have been bigger than the supposed eight and a half inch upper limit.

[Vagabond]

A couple of points I left out.  One or two guides claim the loach is poor eating.  Continental (mainly French) sources say the  Spined loach is excellent  eating but the Stone loach is poor. That  makes sense of the more muscular make up of the wriggly Spined loach compared withe the Stone loach,  which spend so much of its time skulking under rocks or debris.

Another feature is the tail - rounded in the Spined loach, slightly forked in the Stone loach.