Garra is a genus of small to medium cyprinids found across a broad arc of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, distinguished by a ventral sucking disc formed from a modified lower lip that lets these fish cling to rock in fast-flowing water - the same ecological trick hillstream loaches use, arrived at independently in an unrelated family. The six species in the atlas cluster around the arid Middle East and Central Asia, with records from Iran, Iraq, Oman, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and China; several inhabit isolated desert springs, wadis, and thermal streams rather than large rivers. Atlas size data centers on 5.5 in.
The standout species is Garra rufa, known worldwide as the doctor fish for its role in fish-spa pedicures, where captive schools nibble dead skin from bathers' feet - a use that has made it far more famous outside the aquarium hobby than in it, though it is also kept as a hardy, algae-grazing schooling fish suited to flowing river-biotope tanks. Conservation is a live concern for this group: most of these species are Not Evaluated or otherwise poorly assessed, and the atlas flags three of the six as CARES conservation-priority species, consistent with how vulnerable isolated spring- and wadi-dwelling fish are to groundwater extraction and habitat loss across this region.