Taxonomy & naming
Garo khajuriai was described by Talwar, Yazdani and Kundu in 1977 and is now placed in the genus Garo within the Chaudhuriidae, a small South and Southeast Asian family of slender, burrowing, eel-shaped fishes. Catalog of Fishes treats it as the valid name. The family sits close to the spiny eels and swamp eels in the aquarium trade, which is why it is shelved with them here.
Morphology
FishBase gives a maximum length of 2.5 in SL. Like other chaudhuriids it has a long, slender, worm-like body and reduced fins. The atlas holds no further description of its colour or fin counts.
Habitat
The type locality is a paddy field at Rongrengiri in the Garo Hills District of Meghalaya, India. FishBase lists the species from the Garo Hills and from Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam. It is a freshwater, bottom-dwelling fish of a tropical region, so a wet-season rice paddy and its drainage ditches are typical habitat. FishBase records no temperature, pH or hardness range for it.
Feeding
Diet is not recorded for this species. Related earthworm eels take small invertebrates from the substrate, and an aquarist would offer live blackworms, small bloodworms and similar bottom-sized foods.
Mating
Courtship and mating behaviour are not described.
Breeding
No breeding record exists for this species in the sources available to the atlas.
In the aquarium
The species is uncommon in the trade; the atlas knows it from the Wet Spot stock list. A fine sand or soft silt substrate, dense cover and a tight lid suit a burrowing, eel-shaped fish this size, and tankmates should be peaceful and small enough not to compete for food. FishBase gives no water chemistry, so keep it in the soft, warm, clean conditions common to the region and watch the fish for guidance.
Conservation
The IUCN Red List assessed Garo khajuriai as Near Threatened on 1 March 2007. Its known range is two areas of northeast India, and paddy fields and small streams there are exposed to drainage and agricultural change. Wild-caught stock should be treated as a limited resource.