ID this Peruvian Pleco please!

[MiguelPeru]

[Martin S]

All I know is it's almost definitely a Hypostomus - do you have a capture location?
HTH
Martin

[MatsP]

These are quite hard to identify - even with an exact river, but

Hypostomus hemicochliodon

is one possible candidate.

--
Mats

[Jackster]

This appears on other Peru price lists as Hypostomus gomesi L231.

[MatsP]

Interesting. Hypostomus gomesi turns into Squaliforma gomesi in Fishbase, and it comes from eastern Brazil (Jaguaribe River).

L231 is indeed a Hypostomus species in Aqualog, and from Peru. The Cat-eLog is not listing L231 as a common name... Aqualog also says that L231=L266.

--
Mats

[MiguelPeru]

Hello guys,
this pleco did not come from iquitos, this Pleco came from Huallaga river, VERY far away from Iquitos, it is nearest to the Andeans instead of the high jungle.

[MatsP]

That is a good key. However, there is no Hypostomus in our database that is listed as Huallaga distribution. Going up a level in the "tree" of rivers we have only one Hypostomus that is listed as a Maranon dsitribution

Hypostomus sp(l227)

. But that is listed as Ucayali - haven't got my Peru map, so I can't say if that is close or not. The pattern of the fish doesn't look like a perfect match, however.

Going up another level to "Upper Amazon", we do have another possible:

Hypostomus sp`rio_payamino`

It is still possible that this fish is either a so far undescribed species, or a described fish outside of the distribution we know of.

--
Mats

[Jools]

Are we sure it's not a

Baryancistrus

- there seems to be a flap of skin at the posterior base of the dorsal fin - maybe this also sometimes found in

Hypostomus

but I was unaware of it. I can't do any better than Hypostominae sp. `rio Huallaga` !


Jools

[Borbi]

Hi,

I see a member of Squaliforma in this picture. Hard to decide which one, but

Squaliforma cf_emarginata

is always a good guess. Fortunately, at least one form (don´t know which L-Number, right now) is also known from Peru.

Cheers, Sandor

[Jools]

Sandor,

I don't think it's a

Squaliforma

because the body between the dorsal and adipose fin is not elongate enough and we do not see an extended lower caudal fin lobe. While there is some caudal fin damage that might account for that, the thickness of both caudal fin rays is roughly equal. In

Squaliforma

of this size, you would begin to see the lower lobe being thicker.

Jools