Taxonomy & naming
Britz and Kottelat described Indostomus crocodilus in 1999 from Nae Nam Tod Deng, north of Sungai Kolok in Narathiwat Province, Thailand. It is one of the few species in the family Indostomidae, an Asian family long placed near sticklebacks and pipefishes and now treated as its own lineage.
Morphology
The body is slender and covered in bony plates, with a long, tubular snout and a row of isolated spines along the back instead of a continuous dorsal fin. FishBase gives a maximum of 1 in SL.
Habitat
FishBase records the species from a blackwater stream, living close to the bottom among submerged vegetation. The only locality given is the type locality in Narathiwat Province, Thailand.
Feeding
Diet is not recorded by FishBase. The tubular snout and small size point to tiny live prey picked from plants and the substrate, and the genus is kept on live foods in captivity.
Mating
Courtship has not been described for this species.
Breeding
Breeding of I. crocodilus is not documented in the sources available to the atlas.
In the aquarium
A specialist fish for a small, still, tannin-stained tank with fine plants, kept alone or with other very small, peaceful species. It is sold by a few importers under its scientific name.
Conservation
FishBase lists Indostomus crocodilus as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List; no assessment year is given in the cached record. It is known only from a small area of peat-swamp and blackwater habitat in southern Thailand.