Chiloglanis is a genus of small African suckermouth catfishes in the family Mochokidae, the squeakers and their relatives. The atlas covers 40 species, most of them under 4 in, with the smallest barely reaching 1 in. They are stream fish through and through: the mouth is drawn out into a broad, muscular oral disc ringed with fine papillae that lets the fish clamp onto rock faces in fast, oxygen-rich water, functioning much like the sucker of a hillstream loach even though the two groups are unrelated. Records in the atlas span a wide swath of sub-Saharan Africa, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Cameroon, Guinea, Angola, Kenya, Zambia, and Nigeria, reflecting how many separate river systems each hold their own local Chiloglanis lineages.
Chiloglanis species are grazers and biofilm scrapers rather than open-water hunters, rasping algae and associated invertebrates off submerged rock with that same sucking mouth. They rarely appear in the aquarium trade — most species are little known outside ichthyological surveys, and their strict need for strong current and clean, well-oxygenated water makes them a demanding, specialist keep rather than a beginner fish. Interest in the genus is mostly scientific and conservation-driven: the IUCN tally in the atlas includes several Vulnerable and Endangered species alongside one Critically Endangered listing, a pattern typical of rock-dwelling rapids specialists whose entire range can sit within a single stretch of river vulnerable to damming, siltation, or pollution.
Taxonomically, Chiloglanis is one of the more species-rich mochokid genera in the family Mochokidae, and new species continue to be described as African river systems are surveyed more thoroughly, so the genus's true diversity is very likely larger than what is currently documented in the atlas or in the literature at large.