As far as is known, the diploid karyotype of garras is 2n = 50. Garras are not or barely noticeably sexually dimorphic and generally cryptically coloured benthic freshwater fish. Five species in the genus ("G. dunsirei", "G. lorestanensis", "G. tashanensis", "G. typhlops" and some populations of "G. barreimiae") are cave-adapted, lacking pigmentation and/or eyes. Garras are omnivorous, eating alga, plankton and small invertebrates that they suck off substrate like rocks or logs. The food is scraped off with the sharp keratinized borders of the jaws and ingested via suction, created by contracting and relaxing the buccopharynx. As typical for Cypriniformes, the garras lack a stomach entirely, their oesophagus leading directly to the sphincter of the intestine. Different "Garra" species eat animal and vegetable matter in different proportions, which can – as typical for vertebrates – usually be recognized by the length of their intestine compared to related species: more herbivorous species have a longer intestine. Indeed, intestinal length in this genus is remarkably constant within species and varies a lot between species, meaning that it is useful to distinguish species and that dietary shifts have played a significant role in the evolution of garras. When the females are ready to spawn, they are markedly plum and swollen; the ripe roe may fill almost four-fifths of their body cavity. The testicles of reproductive males are large too. The average "Garra" egg is 1.77 mm in diameter and a clutch contains several hundred eggs – up to a thousand or so in large females. The breeding behaviour is generally not well known and breeding is not often achieved in the aquarium; presumably, like many of their relatives they migrate upstream or (if they otherwise inhabit lakes) into the rivers to spawn. These are the currently recognized species in this genus: