Taxonomy & naming
Paraschistura hormuzensis was described in 2015 by Jörg Freyhof, Hamid Reza Sayyadzadeh, Hamid Reza Esmaeili and Matthias Geiger in their review of the genus Paraschistura from Iran, which added six new species at once. The type locality is the Rudan River at the Abnama bridge, a tributary of the Minab River, at 27°28'24"N 57°15'14"E in Hormuzgan Province, southern Iran. The species epithet hormuzensis refers to the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway off the coast of the province where the Minab drainage empties into the Persian Gulf.
Paraschistura is one of several genera carved out of the old, unwieldy catch-all Nemacheilus/Noemacheilus over the past few decades, alongside Schistura, Triplophysa, Oxynoemacheilus and Barbatula among others — a reshuffling that continues as Iranian and Middle Eastern nemacheilids get closer taxonomic attention. The Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer, CAS) is the authority for the current combination, Paraschistura hormuzensis, and it remains in that genus with no synonymy to report.
Morphology
Like other stone loaches, Paraschistura hormuzensis has an elongate, only mildly compressed body built for holding position in current rather than for open-water swimming. FishBase records a maximum size of about 2 in standard length for males and unsexed specimens — a genuinely small fish, typical for the genus. The body is fully scaled, distinguishing it from some naked-skinned relatives, and the lateral line is incomplete, a common nemacheilid trait.
Males carry a triangular suborbital flap of skin near the eye, a feature used alongside fin and colour-pattern details to separate Paraschistura hormuzensis from its close relatives in the 2015 review. As with all Nemacheilidae, expect a small, erectile suborbital spine used defensively and for wedging into crevices — a family-wide feature that keepers of any stone or brook loach should know about when netting or handling the fish. Detailed colour pattern and fin-ray counts beyond the diagnostic features are not covered in the sources available here, so a fuller morphological picture awaits further published work.
Habitat
This species is endemic to the Minab River drainage of Hormuzgan Province in southern Iran, known specifically from the Rudan River, a Minab tributary, near the Abnama bridge. This is a narrow-range endemic — a fish tied to a single river system in an arid part of the Middle East, not a widely distributed species.
No detailed physicochemical data (temperature, pH) were captured for this species in the available sources. Its relatives in Nemacheilidae are stream-dwelling, benthic micro-predators typically found in cool-to-warm, clear, fast-flowing, well-oxygenated water over gravel and stone — the classic stone-loach habitat — and there is no reason to expect otherwise here, but that inference should be treated as a reasonable extrapolation from the family rather than a documented fact for this exact population.
Feeding
No species-specific diet data were found in the available sources. Nemacheilid stone loaches as a group are bottom-foraging micro-predators, picking small invertebrates — aquatic insect larvae, worms and tiny crustaceans — from among gravel and stones in fast water, and Paraschistura hormuzensis can be expected to feed the same way given its build and habitat.
In the aquarium, stone loaches of this type generally do well on small sinking foods: live or frozen bloodworm, daphnia and brine shrimp, along with quality sinking pellets sized for a small-mouthed fish. There is no published record of this species being kept or fed in captivity, so any care approach should be treated as an extrapolation from the wider genus rather than field-tested guidance.
Mating
No information on courtship, spawning triggers or sexual dimorphism beyond the male's suborbital flap was found for this species. Nothing in the available sources documents pairing behaviour, spawning season, or migration patterns for Paraschistura hormuzensis specifically.
Breeding
Data are sparse to the point of absence: there is no published record of Paraschistura hormuzensis being bred in the aquarium or observed spawning in the wild. Based on the general pattern for stone and brook loaches (Nemacheilidae), the expected mode is an egg-scatterer that releases eggs over gravel or among stones in fast-flowing water, with no parental care afterward — but this has not been documented for this species and should be understood as an inference from the family, not a confirmed fact. As with most Nemacheilidae, it is rarely or never bred in captivity.
In the aquarium
Paraschistura hormuzensis is not established in the aquarium trade, and no husbandry data specific to this species were found. Given its small adult size (around 2 in) and its habitat as a fast-water stream loach, a keeper attempting it would want a well-oxygenated, moderate-to-strong-flow setup over a gravel or fine stone substrate, in the tradition of other small nemacheilid stone and brook loaches.
As with virtually all true loaches, this fish is likely near-scaleless-skinned relative to non-loach fishes and should be treated with caution around copper-based and full-strength medications; ich sensitivity is a general concern across the family. Because this species has essentially no documented aquarium history, any care regimen should be built conservatively from the genus and family rather than from specific experience with this fish.
Conservation
Paraschistura hormuzensis has not been formally assessed on the IUCN Red List and is recorded here as Not Evaluated. As a narrow-range endemic known only from the Rudan/Minab drainage in Hormuzgan Province, Iran, it is the kind of single-river-system species that would be a reasonable candidate for future assessment, given the general vulnerability of such restricted-range stream fishes to water abstraction, damming and habitat change in arid regions — but no formal evaluation or documented threat data exists yet, and no claim beyond Not Evaluated can be supported from current sources.