Eidinemacheilus is a genus of stone loach in the family Nemacheilidae, notable for including one of the very few obligate cave-dwelling fish known from the Middle East. Eidinemacheilus smithi, the Zagros blind loach, lives in groundwater and cave-stream systems of the Zagros Mountains straddling Iran and Iraq, and, like other hypogean, cave-adapted fish worldwide, it has lost its eyes and most of its body pigment, relying instead on non-visual senses to navigate and feed in permanent darkness. The atlas also records a second species, Eidinemacheilus proudlovei, from the same general Iran-Iraq border region.
Cave fish of this kind are almost never available in the aquarium trade: their habitats are difficult to access, populations are typically small and localized, and collecting from groundwater systems raises its own conservation concerns, so Eidinemacheilus is of essentially no hobby relevance and is documented here for its taxonomic and biogeographic interest instead. One of the atlas's two species already carries a Vulnerable IUCN listing, in line with the broader vulnerability of subterranean aquatic species, whose entire range can amount to a single cave system or aquifer and which are acutely sensitive to groundwater pollution or over-extraction.