Physoschistura is a genus of small stone loaches in the family Nemacheilidae, native to hill streams of South and Southeast Asia — the atlas's species are recorded from India, Myanmar, Thailand, and China. Like other nemacheilids, they are slender, scaleless or fine-scaled bottom-dwellers adapted to clear, fast-flowing, often rocky streams, generally under 4 in and cryptically patterned to blend with gravel and stone substrate. The genus has been described relatively recently in the taxonomic literature and continues to be revised as more hill-stream loaches are surveyed. The atlas covers 13 species.
Physoschistura is essentially unknown in the aquarium trade — only one atlas species carries a common name, the rosy loach (Physoschistura brunneana) — and the genus is better understood as a subject of active ichthyological research than as a hobby fish group. That research status shows up directly in the conservation tally: the large majority of atlas species are not yet formally assessed by the IUCN, which is typical for a genus whose species are still being described and mapped across remote hill-stream drainages.