New species of eel discovered by Maha CM’s son

A new species of swamp eel was discovered from a well in Mumbai by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s younger son Tejas Thackeray and the team at Thackeray Wildlife Foundation.

A new species of swamp eel was discovered from a well in Mumbai by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray’s younger son Tejas Thackeray and the team at Thackeray Wildlife Foundation. Found in a 40-feet deep well located on the premises of a blind school at Jogeshwari West, the eel is named Rakthamichthys Mumba– the Mumbai blind eel. It belongs to genus Rakthamicthys that is endemic to India.

Found in a 40-feet deep well located on the premises of a blind school at Jogeshwari West, the eel is named Rakthamichthys Mumba– the Mumbai blind eel. It belongs to genus Rakthamicthys that is endemic to India.

Besides Thackeray, scientists including Jayasimhan Praveenraj, Anil Mohapatra, Annam Pavan-Kumar collaborated in making this discovery. Thackeray’s younger son is a wildlife enthusiast and has been involved in discovering other species in the past, including of gecko, snake and crab.

Unlike other species of its genus, the mumba lacks eyes, fins and scales, has jaws equal in forward extent, different gill aperture, crescentic-shaped cephalic. This is the first completely blind subterranean freshwater fish species to be described from Maharashtra and the Northern western Ghats. The species name ‘mumba’ refers to the locality in Mumbai. The word ‘mumba’ derives its roots from the Marathi language, which honours Mumba Aai, a deity worshipped by the inhabitants of this city.

‘Rakthamichthys Mumba, a new species of Hypogean eel (Teleostei: Synbranchidae) from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India’ was published in September 2021 in Aqua International Journal of Ichthyology.