What is a pleco?

[hotsauce48]

[Mod edit: Split from http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... =5&t=25067 --Mats]

Otocinclus is not a pleco,but the smallest is probaly the clown pleco.The pitbull pleco is even smaller but is still a species of otocinclus.

[Mod Edit: Added poll --Mats]

[Richard B]

Otocinclus is not a pl*co,but the smallest is probaly the clown pl*co.The pitbull pl*co is even smaller but is still a species of otocinclus.

I suppose it depends on your definition of pleco... most people would take it to be a member of the loricariid family, which means Silurus is correct

[crocodile_pleco]

Otocinclus is not a pl*co,but the smallest is probaly the clown pl*co.The pitbull pl*co is even smaller but is still a species of otocinclus.

I suppose it depends on your definition of pl*co... most people would take it to be a member of the loricariid family, which means Silurus is correct

Of course we are talking about Loricariidae family. Does anybody know about clown pleco?

[Richard B]

The clown pleco gets to 3.9" SL - considerably larger than most of the otocinclus/parotocinlus

[Rohan Richardson]

The clown pleco is L168 easily kept and bred in a small tank ie. standard 3' or 4'. A large number of peckoltia are also easily kept and bred in tanks of the same size as they are also very small cats. Rohan R

[MatsP]

If we say that "Pleco = Loricariidae", then this is a list of the smallest plecos in the Cat-eLog.

Since we don't currently record subfamilies, so there's no easy way to split [unless we go for genus - and there are quite a lot of genus that definitely count as plecos, so it would be hard work to come up with an "automatic" way to list those].

--
Mats

[Birger]

Some of the little ancistrus such as

Ancistrus claro

are great little fish.
Could easily be kept and bred in smaller size tanks.

[hotsauce48]

birger is right, otociclus is still not a pleco ( or at least was never known to be a pleco ).And ancistrus claro is defenitly a pleco and has been known one.Another thing is usually when you research otocinclus or buy it.They are just reconized as catfish and a dwarf species.

[Birger]

birger is right, otociclus is still not a pl*co

This is not what I meant at all.

Pleco is a fairly generic common name used for South American fish with a sucker type mouth, as said already

most people would take it to be a member of the loricariid family,

Taken from

Hypostomus plecostomus

Which I would think off hand the whole pleco thing came from

pleco = sucker, stomus = mouth.

[MatsP]

pl*co is a fairly generic common name used for South American fish with a sucker type mouth, as said already
[...snip...]
Taken from

Hypostomus plecostomus

Which I would think off hand the whole pl*co thing came from

pl*co = sucker, stomus = mouth.

Actually, I beleive it comes from the time before the Genus Plecostomus was made into a synonym of Hypostomus, and many species have been in the genus Plecostomus at one time or another according to some scientist.

The real problem with the term "pleco" is that it isn't a scientific description. It's a common name usage for a variety of genus. Genus form subfamilies [and Jools is actually working on introducing subfamilies into the Cat-eLog, but with hundreds of genus, and many different web-pages that deal with the database of the Cat-eLog, it is not a "5-minute job" - not to produce correct PHP code to perform the necessary work, nor to fill in the database so that all species are in their respective subfamily].

The subfamilies in Loricariidae are [according to Wikipedia as of today - CLOFFSCA has a slightly different view, but not dramatically different]:

• Delturinae
  This contains the two genere
  Hemipsilichthys
  and
  Delturus
  . They look like Plecos to me.
• Hypoptopomatinae
  Hypoptopomatinae is the group that contains
  Otocinclus
  , as well as
  Parotocinclus jumbo
  . The latter certainly looks very much like a small Hypostomus species. Perhaps not plecos in the traditional meaning?
• Hypostominae
  We can SURELY say that Hypostominae contain plecos, as it contains
  Hypostomus
  ,
  Pterygoplichthys
  and many other species that are commonly thought of as "plecos".
• Lithogeneinae
  Lithogeneinae contains only one valid species, Lithogenes villosus, which isn't in the Cat-eLog.
• Loricariinae
  Are Loricariinae "plecos" or not? In the traditional looks like a Hypostomus, probably not. They are whiptails by common name, e.g.
  Loricaria
  ,
  Sturisoma
  ,
  Rineloricaria
  , but there are L-numbers in this group (L010 and L010a spring to mind immediately), - are L-numbers plecos or not necessarily? [Most of then grow well beyond 100 mm, so they are not in the battle for the smallest either way].
• Neoplecostominae
  Neoplecostominae which has the genus
  Neoplecostomus
  are also pretty "pleco-like" to me.

I'm not trying to determine what is and isn't a pleco here, just trying to explain that it's actually pretty hard to determine where to draw the line - the line may even be quite wiggly.
--
Mats


[Mod edit: Jools: Fixed clog tag spelling of Pterygoplichthys]

[Birger]

Actually, I beleive it comes from the time before the Genus Plecostomus was made into a synonym of Hypostomus, and many species have been in the genus Plecostomus at one time or another according to some scientist.

You are right mats, I was thinking more of when it started to be used as a general term and when the name hypostomus plecostomus was much more commonly used even if at times mistakenly.

[andywoolloo]

so I am getting confused now. An oto is a pl*co, right? It is listed under Loricariidae then otocinclus. Just a wee pl*co, correct?

[MatsP]

so I am getting confused now. An oto is a pl*co, right? It is listed under Loricariidae then otocinclus. Just a wee pl*co, correct?

It is definitely a Loricariidae. If it's a pleco or not depends on what you determine is a pleco - we can discuss that for a long time without agreeing, I would think.

--
Mats

[andywoolloo]

k, thanks. I am no longer confused, it's like i originally thought. An oto is a member of the larger catfish family which consists of many different branches, one of which is the loricariidae of which the oto falls under. Making him a pl*co.

[MatsP]

k, thanks. I am no longer confused, it's like i originally thought. An oto is a member of the larger catfish family which consists of many different branches, one of which is the loricariidae of which the oto falls under. Making him a pl*co.

If you say that Pleco == Loricariidae, then yes. And to be technically correct, Oto is a member of the family Loricariidae, which in turn is the order of Siluriformes, which is the umbrellay under which ALL catfish are categorized. A family is then split into subfamily, then genus and finally species.

--
Mats

[andywoolloo]

so all catfish are Siluriformes, which is an order. Then comes the different families under the order of Siluriformes, of which one is loricariidae. The family of loricariidae is split into sub families then genus then speicies.

is there a family branch , tree article on this site, i thought there was that branched them all out? I will continue searching for it.

[andywoolloo]

I found this

http://www.planetcatfish.com/shanesworl ... cle_id=174

sorry , i think i am hijacking the thread. I will keep searching for a chart.

[MatsP]

Aside from the Shane's world article you linked, you can view a family in the Cat-eLog (or even link to it by putting clog-tags around it).

In a page of a Cat-eLog data sheet, you can click on the Family name which is right next to where it says "Cat-eLog" at the top of the page - along with the genus and species name, something like this:
Cat-eLog > Loricariidae > Panaque >Panaque maccus
So if you click on Loricariidae, you get the whole family.
If you click on Panaque, you get the genus of Panaque. At the moment, the database doesn't have a (full) representation of subfamily, so you can't see that, in general at this point in time.

And there is this:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/families.php

And this:
http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/he ... cation.php

--
Mats

[racoll]

Pleco = Loricariidae as far as I am concerned.

[MatsP]

So two scientists [in case you didn't know, Silurus and racoll are both working in scientific institutions involving fish - Silurus in particular is experienced fish researcher with many papers published on new species and such like] say "Loricariidae == pleco" now - that's good enough for me.

--
Mats

[Richard B]

It should be good enough for all surely?

[MatsP]

It should be good enough for all surely?

Yes, I think so too - but if anyone wants to disagree with the people who SHOULD know the answer to this question, I guess they are allowed...

--
Mats

[Bas Pels]

I always thought pleco = Hypostomatinae, but apparently my favourite Loricarid, Hisonotus sp. is a pleco too

Well, they do look like miniature plecos to me, but the related Otocinclus lok less like a pleca

However, I don't mind standing corrected in such a matter

[Chrysichthys]

I think this is a bit like the recent debate over whether or not Pluto is a planet. The hard part is defining what a planet is in the first place. Once that's done, the answer is easy.

That said, I would go with the opinion that otos are plecos, and therefore agree with Silurus et al.

[racoll]

With something as subjective as this, there is no objective right or wrong (it depends on usage), but if you apply a bit of logic (basically exactly how Mats explained above) then all loricariids should be plecos. However both Silurus and I will find it hard to think beyond grouping things based on a monophyletic lineage, and that just isn't how common names work! Common names are based of grouping "stuff that just looks the same", which often has no relation to the evolution of the group.

Maybe a poll would be a good idea to gauge people's usage of the term "pleco" ?

The two options would be:

1) Pleco = all Loricariidae
2) Pleco = all chunky loricariids with a SL above about 3"

[Dave Rinaldo]

The term "pleco" is used, in the aquarium hobby, to describe any member of the family Loricariidae (pronounced, lohr-ih-care-EE-id-dee)*.

From Shane's World

*Is this correct? I thought "dae" = "day"

[racoll]

*Is this correct? I thought "dae" = "day"

Depends if you follow classical latin or not. I say "die" (the classical way), but most people say "dee". Some people say "day".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_spel ... nunciation

http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm#classical

[racoll]

With the exception of the stingray pl*co (not a real pl*co), I only use the term pl*co of it has the typical "pl*co" features...body armour, large mouth for clinging to the glass, dorsal & pectoral spikes. Farlowella, chinese algae eaters & such I wouldnt call a pl*co.

Interesting.

Seeing as HH answered the question as to what was the smallest loricariid, perhaps a mod could split off the discussion about what a pleco is into a new topic, and people can vote in a poll.

Title of topic: "What is a Pleco?"

[MatsP]

Racoll, your wish is my command [in this case at least

[And that was harder than I thought, because I left some posts behind and had to merge two threads together... Doh! --Mats]
--
Mats

[racoll]

Cool, Mats are you able to set up a post-hoc poll?

And on second thoughts, perhaps a more informative title such as "Definition of the term pleco" might attract more clicks.....

Cheers!