1 Lasbela Uni. J. Sci., Tech., vol. 3, pp.1-4, 2014 ISSN 2306-8256 RESEARCH ARTICLE Morphology of Adhesive Organ of a Hill-stream Fish Glyptothorax telchitta (Ham.) (Teleostei: Sisoridae) from Saptakoshi River, Barahkshetra, Nepal Bharat Raj Subba 1 and Manish Raj Pandey *2 1. Department of Zoology, Post Graduate Campus (TU), Biratnagar, Nepal 2. National Trust for Nature Conservation, Lalitpur, Nepal Abstract:-Glyptothorax telchitta (Ham.) is a benthic hill-stream Sisoroid catfish inhabiting Saptakoshi river and its main tributaries in Nepal. The hill-stream fish bears a thoracic adhesive organ of definite shape and size. It occupies about 3.5 to 4.0 % of the whole body area and is broader than its length. The scanning electron microscopy of adhesive apparatus and its anchoraging mechanism in a hill-stream fish G. telchitta is described in relation to its important roles in adhering to the rocks in torrential hill-streams. Keywords: Adhesive organ, anchoraging mechanism, Glyptothorax telchitta INTRODUCTION In the hill-streams, fishes have to face several hindrances in their movement because of torrential water current associated with slopes, rocky beds and shores. To adapt in such habitats, fishes are bestowed with suitable adhesive organ constituted by integument modification. The adhesive organ is suitably present in the thoracic region. It is sempre subjected to more stress. This organ for attachment is considered as life securing device especially for hill-stream fishes. Hora (1930), explained the evolution of torrential fauna with special reference to the organ of attachment. Rauther (1928) and Bhatia (1950) also described the light microscopic study of the adhesive apparatus of Discognathus lamta and Glyptothorax telchitta, respectively. Similar works have been done in G. pectinopterus (Lal et al. 1966 and Sinha et al. 1990) and Saxena 1966 has explained adhesive mechanism in Garra mullya. The gross morphology on light microscopic study on adhesive apparatus is revealed by the above contributions. However, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has *Corresponding author: mrpandey70@gmail.com made the study of adhesive organ more interesting, informative and better understanding. Several workers have explained detailed morphological structures of adhesive apparatus with the help of SEM (Singh and Singh 1990; Singh and Agarwal 1991; Johal and Rawal 2003; Das and Nag 2005; Das and Nag 2006; Das and Nag 2008). The present study deals with describing the morphological advancement of adhesive organ of G. telchitta found in Saptakoshi river and its tributaries of Nepal and its anchoraging mechanism by SEM. MATERIALS AND METHODS For better understanding, an attempt has been made to study the SEM structure of the adhesive organ of G. telchitta. Fishes were collected from Triveni area of Barahkshetra, Saptakoshi River (26°52ƍ34.6Ǝ N 87°09ƍ54.5Ǝ E), Nepal. The whole adhesive organ was carefully removed with the help of a sharp blade from an anesthetized fish. Then the adhesive apparatus was perfused with cold 2.5% glutaraldehyde in 0.1 M phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) for ten minutes with the help of a plastic syringe. The specimen was kept for 48 hours in the refrigerator then washed thoroughly in 0.1 M phosphate buffer and dehydrated in graded ethanol series (15 minutes each in 30%, 50%, 70%, 90% and two successive immersions in 100% ethanol) and