Taxonomy & naming
Schistura andrewi was formally described in 2014 by Solo, Lalramliana, Lalronunga and Lalnuntluanga in Zootaxa (3860(3):260-267), from a holotype collected in the Mat River near Serchhip, Mizoram. It sits in the genus Schistura, part of the family Nemacheilidae — by species count the largest family of loaches, a group that has absorbed much of what older literature called Nemacheilus or Noemacheilus as those catch-all genera were progressively split apart. The Catalog of Fishes is the standing authority for the valid combination, and it is retained here as Schistura andrewi.
The species epithet honours a personal name ("andrewi"), in the customary Latinised genitive pattern used for loach descriptions from this region; the original paper should be consulted for the full etymological note, which was not captured in the sources available for this profile. As with many recently described Schistura from the Indo-Burman hill streams, the species was distinguished from its congeners on a combination of fin-ray counts, lateral-line pore counts and colour pattern rather than any single striking feature.
Morphology
The type description characterises Schistura andrewi by a long axillary pelvic lobe, a complete lateral line running 82 to 95 pores along the flank, two unbranched dorsal and anal fin rays, and a body pattern of six to seven broad black bars. The caudal fin is deeply emarginate (forked with a shallow notch) and carries two rows of black spots — a useful field mark separating it from superficially similar Schistura in the same drainage. FishBase records a maximum length of about 2 in standard length for males and unsexed individuals, making this a genuinely small loach even by Schistura standards.
As in other members of the genus, the body carries the family's characteristic near-scaleless, smooth skin and, in many Schistura, an erectile suborbital spine tucked in a groove below the eye — a defensive structure shared across the wider Cobitoidea and one reason loaches in general are handled carefully and medicated cautiously. The original description should be treated as the primary source for finer anatomical detail; beyond the diagnostic characters above, little further morphological data has been captured for this species.
Habitat
Schistura andrewi is known only from the Mat River, a tributary of the Kaladan River system, in Mizoram, in the hill country of far northeastern India near the Myanmar border. FishBase describes the type habitat as a small pool with slow-flowing water over a substrate of sand, gravel and rocks — a microhabitat within a larger river system whose Mizoram headwaters are cool, clear, mountain-fed streams typical of the region's steep, forested terrain.
No other locality has been reported for the species, and the sources available for this profile do not describe seasonal or wider-catchment habitat data beyond the type locality. That narrow known distribution — a single named river system in a hill state with limited ichthyological survey coverage — is a recurring pattern among newly described Schistura from northeastern India and adjacent Myanmar, and it is one reason so many of these small stone loaches remain data-sparse even a decade after description.
Feeding
No diet study specific to Schistura andrewi is available in the sources for this profile. FishBase lists a trophic level of 3.0, consistent with a benthic forager taking small invertebrates and organic material from the streambed rather than plant matter or larger prey — the standard feeding mode across the genus. Related Schistura are documented bottom-foraging micro-predators, picking small aquatic invertebrates, insect larvae and tiny crustaceans from sand, gravel and rock substrate in fast, clear water.
In the absence of species-specific data, the safest inference is that Schistura andrewi feeds the same way: a benthic micro-predator of small invertebrates in flowing water, rather than a grazer or an opportunistic omnivore in the mould of the larger botiids. Any aquarium feeding regime should follow that pattern rather than assume it will take flake or vegetable matter readily.
Mating
No description of courtship, spawning behaviour or sexual dimorphism has been published for Schistura andrewi in the sources available for this profile — the original description is a taxonomic paper focused on diagnosing the species from its congeners, not a natural-history account. Data on reproduction in this species should be considered sparse rather than absent by design; it may simply not have been studied.
Across the wider genus, small stream-dwelling Schistura are egg-scattering fish with no sustained pair bond and no nest-building behaviour, and there is no reason from the available evidence to expect Schistura andrewi to differ from that general pattern.
Breeding
As with most stone and brook loaches, Schistura andrewi has not been reported bred in the aquarium, and the sources for this profile contain no breeding record for the species. The general pattern across Nemacheilidae is an egg-scatterer that releases eggs over gravel and among stones in fast-flowing water, with no parental care given afterward — a very different reproductive strategy from the cave-guarding males of gobies or the mouthbrooding seen in some cichlid groups, neither of which applies to any loach.
Given the complete absence of aquarium-breeding data for this species, the honest summary is that it is essentially unknown in captive breeding: rarely or never bred at home, consistent with the wider genus, and any keeper attempting it would be working without a documented precedent to follow.
In the aquarium
Schistura andrewi has no established aquarium history in the sources available for this profile, and it does not appear to be a regular part of the ornamental trade — its narrow, recently described distribution in a single Mizoram river system makes that unsurprising. Any care guidance here is necessarily inferred from the genus and from the fish's small size and habitat rather than from direct experience with the species.
A small (roughly 2 in) Schistura from cool, fast-flowing hill streams should be given cool-to-moderate, clean, well-oxygenated water with real flow, a sand-and-gravel-and-rock substrate to match its wild habitat, and no strong current-avoiding decor that would leave it in stagnant water. Like other loaches it is likely near-scaleless and sensitive to copper and full-strength medications, so any treatment should start conservatively. Given the total lack of documented captive husbandry, this species is best regarded as one for a specialist keeper working from first principles rather than a settled care sheet.
Conservation
Schistura andrewi has not been evaluated by the IUCN Red List and carries no conservation status here beyond Not Evaluated. FishBase confirms the same NE status. With a distribution apparently restricted to the Mat River within the Kaladan River drainage in Mizoram, and no wider survey data available, the species' actual range and population trend are unknown — it may be a genuine single-river endemic or simply under-surveyed across the wider Kaladan system.
Mizoram's hill streams face the general pressures common to northeastern Indian freshwater systems — deforestation, siltation and small-scale water development — but no source available for this profile documents a specific threat assessment for this species. In the absence of an IUCN evaluation or population data, the responsible position is to flag it as a narrow-range, poorly known endemic rather than assign it a status it has not been given.