Balitora is a genus of hillstream loaches in the family Balitoridae, native to fast-flowing mountain and foothill streams across South and Southeast Asia — the atlas's records span China, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nepal, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Bhutan. The genus shows the classic hillstream-loach body plan: a flattened, streamlined shape and broadly expanded paired fins that together form a sucker-like disc, letting the fish cling to rocks in cold, swift, highly oxygenated current instead of being swept downstream. The atlas covers 22 species, small fish from roughly 1.5–4.5 in as adults.
Hillstream loaches like Balitora have a devoted following among biotope and planted-tank keepers who build fast-current, high-oxygen river-tank setups to match, prizing the genus for its algae-grazing habits and its distinctive flattened, disc-finned shape unlike almost anything else in the trade; success with them depends on replicating cool, well-oxygenated, moving water rather than typical still-water aquarium conditions. Much of the genus remains poorly studied — the majority of the atlas's species have not yet been formally assessed for conservation status — which is typical of small-range Asian stream fish from remote highland drainages that have only recently been surveyed in detail.