Taxonomy & naming
Schistura kampucheensis was formally described in 2016 by Bohlen, Petrtýl, Chaloupková and Borin, part of a wave of Schistura descriptions from Cambodia and neighbouring countries in the 2010s as ichthyologists worked through the country's poorly surveyed tributary streams. The species epithet, kampucheensis, is built directly from Kampuchea, the Khmer name for Cambodia, marking the fish as a Cambodian endemic in its own name.
It sits in the genus Schistura, within the family Nemacheilidae — the stone or brook loaches, by far the largest family of true loaches and one that has been repeatedly reshuffled as older catch-all genera such as Nemacheilus and Noemacheilus were split apart. The Catalog of Fishes governs the valid combination, and Schistura kampucheensis is the currently accepted name; no synonymy or reassignment is noted in the sources consulted for this profile.
Morphology
This is a small, slender stone loach, with FishBase reporting a maximum length of about 2 in standard length. The original description notes a series of 6 to 11 regular black bars crossing the body, 8½ branched dorsal-fin rays, 8+8 branched caudal-fin rays, and an axillary pelvic lobe — a small fleshy flap at the base of the pelvic fin that is a useful field character within the genus. No sexual dimorphism has been reported for the species.
As in other Schistura, the body is built for life wedged among current-washed stones: a rounded, elongate profile, a flattened underside, and — typical of the genus and family — an erectile spine housed in a groove below the eye, plus the near-scaleless skin shared by loaches generally. Beyond the diagnostic counts and banding pattern given in the description, detailed morphological data for this species remain sparse.
Habitat
Schistura kampucheensis is known from small streams up to about 6 metres wide in the tributaries of the Mekong, Tek Chhou and Srae Ambel rivers, spanning Cambodia's Kampot, Ratanakiri and Kaoh Kong provinces — a spread that runs from the southwestern coastal hills to the northeastern highlands. These are streams of moderate flow over a rocky substrate thick with stones, and the fish hides in the gaps between them, in keeping with the Schistura habit of sheltering in flowing water with high dissolved oxygen, often near riffles or small waterfalls.
As of its description the species had not been recorded outside Cambodia, and it is treated here as a Cambodian endemic. No specific water chemistry readings (temperature, pH) were captured in the sources for this species; broadly, Schistura of this kind favour cool-to-moderate, clear, well-oxygenated running water rather than warm, still or blackwater conditions, and that general profile is the best available guide until species-specific data are published.
Feeding
No diet study specific to Schistura kampucheensis was found. Loaches in this genus are stream-bottom micro-predators, foraging among stones and gravel for small invertebrates — insect larvae, small crustaceans and other benthic prey — and FishBase lists a mid-range trophic level (around 3.0) consistent with a carnivorous, invertebrate-feeding lifestyle rather than a grazing or omnivorous one.
In an aquarium setting, the genus generally does best on small live and frozen foods — bloodworm, Daphnia, brine shrimp and chironomid larvae are typical choices reported for Schistura species — with best colour and condition coming from that varied, meaty diet rather than dry flake, which these fish tend to ignore in favour of foraging over the substrate.
Mating
Nothing specific to Schistura kampucheensis has been documented about pairing, sexing or spawning behaviour, and the original description records no sexual dimorphism to help distinguish the sexes. This is a genuinely data-sparse area for the species: it is known from a handful of wild collections rather than any sustained observation of its reproductive behaviour, in the water or in captivity.
What can be said follows from the wider genus and family: stone and brook loaches typically spawn as unpaired egg-scatterers in fast-flowing water, without courtship rituals or lasting pair bonds, and without any of the cave-guarding or mouthbrooding strategies seen in unrelated fish groups. There is no evidence this species departs from that general pattern, but it should be read as an inference from the genus rather than a confirmed account for kampucheensis itself.
Breeding
As with most Nemacheilidae, Schistura kampucheensis is presumed to be an egg-scatterer: ripe adults release eggs over gravel and among stones in fast-flowing water, with no parental care of eggs or fry. This is the standard reproductive mode across stone and brook loaches, in clear contrast to cave-spawning or mouthbrooding fish elsewhere in the hobby.
No aquarium or wild spawning of this species has been documented in the available sources, and it should be considered essentially unbred in captivity — consistent with the great majority of Schistura, most of which are rarely if ever reproduced by hobbyists. Anyone acquiring this species should expect to keep it, not breed it, and should treat any breeding claim for it with real skepticism absent published confirmation.
In the aquarium
Schistura kampucheensis is not an established aquarium species, and hard care data are limited; the general profile for small Schistura stone loaches is the best guide available. These are fish of cool-to-moderate, clear, fast, well-oxygenated streams over stone and gravel, and a tank meant to suit them should mimic that: strong water movement, high dissolved oxygen, a stone-and-gravel substrate with plenty of gaps to hide in, and stable, clean water rather than a warm, still, heavily planted setup.
As with loaches generally, the near-scaleless skin makes this genus sensitive to copper and to full-strength medications, so any treatment should be approached cautiously and at reduced dosing. Given its small adult size (around 2–2.5 in), it does not need a large tank by loach standards, but as a genuinely undescribed-in-the-hobby species, anyone keeping it should treat husbandry as experimental and watch the fish closely rather than assume standard stone-loach care will automatically suit it.
Conservation
Schistura kampucheensis has not been formally assessed on the IUCN Red List and is classified here as Not Evaluated. As an apparent single-country endemic known only from a handful of tributary streams in Kampot, Ratanakiri and Kaoh Kong provinces, it fits the wider pattern among Nemacheilidae of narrow-range stream species that have simply never been assessed, rather than one confirmed to be secure.
No information on population trend, threats, or trade status was found in the available sources. Small headwater streams in Cambodia face general pressures from deforestation, agricultural runoff and damming across the wider Mekong basin, but no threat has been specifically documented for this species, and this profile does not speculate beyond what has been recorded.