This fish prefers to slink its way through mud rather than swim in the streams like other freshwater variety. The swamp eel (Monopterus indicus) may look like a snake and has adapted to burrowing habits, but it is actually a fish that can be spotted on the laterite plateaus of the Western Ghats in the monsoon.
The fish, first discovered in Robber’s Cave near Mahabaleshwar, has a unique type of habitat. It has a perennial water source in a stream and the cave hosts a bat colony. The cave is full of bat guano. Surprisingly, the swamp eel not only lives in the stream full of bat guano but actually hides inside the guano mud, said Neelesh Dahanukar, INSPIRE faculty fellow at Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER), Pune.
This fish is endemic to the northern Western Ghats. It inhabits swamps and marshy areas with soft mud associated with hill streams. During the early monsoon it migrates upstream to breed and young and adult swamp eels can often be found under rocks in hill streams, Dahanukar said.
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