Achiroides leucorhynchos, a freshwater soleThis is a freshwater sole! YES, sole (a kind of smaller halibut-like fish, called ikan separuh in Bahasa Melayu) does exist in freshwater streams of Malaysia. This picture was taken back in 2005 from a villager's aquarium from a stream in Raub. This specimen is only about 3,5 cm in length but I have once kept a foot-long specimen from the Jelai River. Because of pollution from logging and land-clearing, native species are getting rarer by the day and the only thing that would remain in our streams would be the Tilapia (an African intrusion) and keli Afrika (the name says it all).
This fish is very sensitive and extremely demanding and any attempt to try to domesticate it would be in vain. It is time that the authorities should take very serious conservation efforts if we ever want to see rarities like this in the future.
There’s also an even more rare freshwater sole in Pahang called Achiroides melanorhijnchus
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