This species is distinguished from its congeners by the following characters: no pigment and eyes (vs. presence of eyes and pigments in all epigean species); with mental disc (vs. absence in G. typhlops), with 2 pairs of barbels (vs. 3 in the sympatric subterranean loach, Paracobitis smithi; 1 in G. variabilis); naked body (vs. body fully covered by scales or scales restricted to lateral midline in G. widdowsoni); a K2P nearest-neighbor distance of 3.8% to G. typhlops and 4.2% to G. rufa (Ref. 107074).