Hedinichthys is a genus of stone loaches (family Nemacheilidae) from western China, recorded in the atlas from that country's inland river basins — arid-region drainages of a kind more associated with Central Asian ichthyology than with the wetter loach diversity of Southeast Asia. Like other stone loaches, members of the genus are small, elongate, bottom-dwelling fish with a slender, scaleless or fine-scaled body and barbels around the mouth for probing sediment, built for life on the streambed of cool, often fast-flowing water. The atlas covers 4 species with an unusually wide size spread, from about 1.5 in up to 12 in, meaning the genus is not uniform in scale even if the general body plan is shared.
Hedinichthys is essentially unknown in the aquarium hobby and is a genus of scientific rather than ornamental interest — none of its species are established trade fish, and Hedinichthys yarkandensis (the Kashgarian loach) is the only one with a widely used common name, reflecting its place in regional ichthyological surveys rather than the aquarium trade. Conservation data are effectively absent: the atlas tally is four Not Evaluated, so no formal IUCN status exists yet for any species in the genus, and care information beyond generic cool-water, current-loving stone-loach husbandry should be treated as data sparse.