A few from Iquitos to ID

[tjudy]

The 'royal laoricaria' flavor of the week....


Four different woodcats
A

B

C... pretty sure I know what this one is.

D

[jeremybasch]

The Loricarrid is probably a form of Loricaria simillima.

[Marc van Arc]

Woodcats:

A:

Spinipterus asci

or a yet undescribed Spinipterus
B: a member of the Tatia intermedia complex
C: I'd say

Tatia galaxias

but it could also be

Tatia neivai

D:

Tatia gyrina

Second thoughts wrt C, given the large spots, I think it is Tatia galaxias.

[tjudy]

Doubtful that D is T. gyrina... these fish came from Peru, and the PlanetCatfish profile described distribution as being Suriname....?

T. galaxias also appears to come from much further north and east.

[Marc van Arc]

Doubtful that D is T. gyrina... these fish came from Peru, and the PlanetCatfish profile described distribution as being Suriname....?
T. galaxias also appears to come from much further north and east.

In that case the PC description is incomplete (see link below).
Anyway, it amazes me that people (in general!) start reading when just looking closely would be more than sufficient. One can see that this is T. gyrina by just comparing your picture with the ones in the Clog.
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/Species ... ng=english
The same goes for T. galaxias imo.
http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Tatia-galaxias.html

I believe that many fishes - unable to read and not restricted by boundaries - have a much larger distribution area than we know or pretend to know.
However, I don't think my view is the general view. I'm a lumper, not a splitter.
I tried to help you out wrt your questions on ID's and this is what I think. If you still have doubts, I'm sorry but there's little I can do about it. Perhaps someone else has better ideas?

Btw: I'd like to state that - although keeping these fishes for an odd 25 years - I still have plenty of things to learn myself. I certainly don't have all answers and I'm aware of that.

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

wrt. Tatia gyrina, I also think that information at PCF is incomplete.
Acc. to Ferraris checklist and others the type locality of this species is close to Iquitos / Rio Itaya.
I think the the "Tatia gyrina" from Suriname have been described as Tatia creutzbergi and considered by some to be a synonym to Tatia gyrina.

We caught some in Suriname this year but I don't have any pics as my friends took these.

Cheers,

[tjudy]

Thank you....

Marc... with all due respect... I am fully aware that fish cannot read, and that most of us are 'arm chair ichthyologists' having some fun with fish that we get sporadic access to. Range data on many fish in the world is woefully incomplete. I have personally collected fish species a long way out of their published ranges. I am not questioning your knowledge, but I do question anyone who claims that they can make positive identification from a single digital photograph, especially in this era of splitting species using factors that cannot be observed by the naked eye. The fish may indeed be what you say that they are, and I appreciate the help. The purpose of posting images on hobby forums is to benefit from our collective knowledge.

[Marc van Arc]

Marc... with all due respect... I am fully aware that fish cannot read, and that most of us are 'arm chair ichthyologists' having some fun with fish that we get sporadic access to. Range data on many fish in the world is woefully incomplete. I have personally collected fish species a long way out of their published ranges. I am not questioning your knowledge, but I do question anyone who claims that they can make positive identification from a single digital photograph, especially in this era of splitting species using factors that cannot be observed by the naked eye. The fish may indeed be what you say that they are, and I appreciate the help. The purpose of posting images on hobby forums is to benefit from our collective knowledge.

Thanks for you appreciating my help, for that's just what it is: help. Like yourself I'm just an amateur having fun with my fishes. Therefore I can't (and won't) possibly look down on anyone or be arrogant. Why should I? If I have given you that impression, I'm sorry for that.
I also hope you noticed me talking in general in my previous post. The line "fish can't read" is used by me to make clear that lots of media contain lots of incorrect information. I used it here to state that fish will not be restricted to area X simply because someone wrote that he found them in area X.

Wrt the quote in bold: based on your reasoning, it would mean that no-one can make a correct ID based on a single picture (or even multiple pictures).
Again, I ID-ed your fishes based on my "knowledge" of keeping auchenipterids for a while, having read a bit and having seen loads of pictures. That's all. As stated in my last line, I have no pretence of knowing everything. Far from it actually. I wouldn't mind if someone proves me wrong, as I can learn from that.

Btw: you state you have an idea yourself about fish C. What do you think it is?

Edit: rephrased a sentence.

[racoll]

Fish C looks like

Tatia intermedia

to me. Spots are ellipsoid in that species (vs. circular in

Tatia galaxias

).

[msjinkzd]

A couple years ago I got fish from Peru that look identical to you woodcat A and got an id of Centromochlus macracanthus. I gave them to Regina Spotti- perhaps she has an idea?

[Marc van Arc]

A couple years ago I got fish from Peru that look identical to you woodcat A and got an id of Centromochlus macracanthus.

Centromochlus macracanthus

has a forked caudal fin, whereas fish A (

Spinipterus acsi

imo) has a truncate caudal fin.

[Marc van Arc]

Fish C looks like

Tatia intermedia

to me. Spots are ellipsoid in that species (vs. circular in

Tatia galaxias

).

Sorry Rupert, have to disagree with you on this one. I know the Tatia intermedia complex is very complex, yet I have never seen an intermedia patterned as bright and beautiful as this one. All intermedias I've seen so far, have an off-white rather stripey pattern, which disappears with age. Although I'm in favour of lumping, I'd say this is a different species based on pattern. Very unscientific, I know -)

PS: when looking at the 4 pictures on the galaxias data sheet, I wonder if they are all the same species.... difficult stuff.

[racoll]

Tatia intermedia

should have dark cross-bars and lack white spots on the caudal fin also, as can be seen the individual here. Small individuals, and individuals from blackwater habitats tend to have brighter spots on a darker body. Fish C looks quite small, compared to the size of the gravel.

All this info is in Sarmento-Soares & Martins-Pinheiro (2008).

[Marc van Arc]

Tatia intermedia

should have dark cross-bars and lack white spots on the caudal fin also, as can be seen the individual here. Small individuals, and individuals from blackwater habitats tend to have brighter spots on a darker body. Fish C looks quite small, compared to the size of the gravel.

All this info is in Sarmento-Soares & Martins-Pinheiro (2008).

If intermedia should not have white spots on the caudal, I've never kept intermedia....
You may call me stubborn, but fig. 27 of the above publication clearly shows spots on the caudal - even in formalin. This is also to be found in the text btw.
I've corresponded with Dr. Ferraris about the fishes you see when hovering over

Tatia intermedia

wrt internal fertilization and he has never given me any reason to doubt these are intermedia.

Another feature that would set fish C apart from what I (used to?) know as intermedia is the hyaline caudal.

[racoll]

You may call me stubborn, but fig. 27 of the above publication clearly shows spots on the caudal - even in formalin. This is also to be found in the text btw.

Yes, it does indeed. I think she was paraphrasing Mees in that remark, but did not expand and clarify it much. I find that paper inconsistent too. It says loud and clear that colour pattern cannot be used to identify several Tatia.

There should be a very obvious difference in eye size between the two species (21.4-26.3% HL in T. intermedia, vs. 37.0-42.9% in T. galaxias). However, I cannot see this in the figures, as they are of such bad quality. Neither can I make out the supposedly longer postcleithral process in T. galaxias.

Technically, T. intermedia (sensu stricto) has no spots at all (Fig 27a), but that picture worries me also: look at the anterior of the dorsal-fin spine in Fig 27a, it's completely lacking the serrations present in the other two T. intermedia.

This fish is the real T. intermedia:



From here.

[Marc van Arc]

This fish is the real T. intermedia:



From here.

This is recognizable to me as an adult male specimen (although the upper caudal lobe could have been a bit longer) with a faded pattern. When you look closely you can still see a hint of spots in the caudal. The juveniles and adolencents of the species I have kept had spots, which wore off once mature. But again, the whole intermedia "problem" is getting beyond my knowledge.....

A bit sloppy is the way the author made a Mess of Mees' name in the References.....

I completely agree with you on the Soares paper. It raises more questions than it provides answers.

Sorry to the OP for more or less hijacking this thread; I wouldn't have objected to this being in the Auchenipterid thread.

[tjudy]

Thanks everyone... I will try to get some better pictures of them tomorrow, especially A.