Vaillantella euepiptera

Vailantella euepiptera is a long, thin fish with a laterally compressed body and a long dorsal fin. The fin rays pf the dorsal fin decrease in length from front to back. It has a deeply forked caudal fin which has long, pointed lobes, the upper lobe being the longer. The head is short with the mouth being under the snout and the upper lip has three pairs of barbels, two on the snout and one on the maxilla.^[7] The dorsal fin is supported by 3 spines and 55 soft rays, the anal fin has 3 spines and 6 soft rays.^[2] The overall colour is brown with many small spots on the upper body and pale on the ventral surface with a slnder, plate stripe running along the flanks. There is an irregular stripe that runs along the back from the nape to the base of the caudal peduncle and this splits up into small saddles along the base of the dorsal fin. There is an orange stripe on the head beginning at the tip of the snout and forks above the rear nostril then over the eys before reuniting between the eye and the operculum, forking into two stripes again along the margin of the operculum. Another rather dark stripe uns from the snout through the lower part of the eye, over the operculum and to the origin of the lateral line. The fin mambranes are translucent with dark rays and each lobe of the caudal fin has a dark blotch in its centre.^[7] This species has a maximum published standard length of 12 cm (4.7 in).^[2]

Vailantella euepiptera is found in southeast Asia where it has been recorded from the Kapuas River system in West Kalimantan on Borneo and from the Pahang River in Peninsular Malaysia. This loach Tis found in sizeable streams where the substrate consists of clay or other soft materials. with leaf litter, turbidity and a slow currents. It prefers areas of these streams which are at least partially shaded by trees.^[1]