Entomocorus gameroi - Penguin Woodcatfish

[dpm1]

I usually love elsewhere on the widewebsphere but as I seem to keep, or have kept, a few catfish of varying rarity I thought I would start with a real unusual type...

Entomocorus gameroi - Penguin Woodcat


I have just acquired 4 of these at ~1" in length. Differences point to 1m+3f but only time will tell. They do have rather odd resting habits - anywhere at any angle - which has given me minor heart attacks of the 'omg my new fish have died!' type, only to check back half hour later to find they have moved!
Information is rather scarce to say the least, and just 5 other keepers registered so not what I would call a common or popular type.
Many thanks in advance to those who reply.

[Richard B]

These are certainly not a frequent import in my experience.

I saw them at GLEE (trade show) a few years ago imported by Neil Hardy Aquaria. I think after posting about them at the time afew people got hold of them & initially reported they did not present any husbandry problems (as long as they're kept with non-aggressive tank mates. A super little fish & i look forward to hearing progress reports

[Suckermouth]

Sounds similar to my experience keeping

Entomocorus radiosus

. I do wish these guys came in a little more, it'd be interesting to experience breeding them. Unfortunately they're short-lived, with scientific literature suggesting they are annuals.

I should also point out that woodcats are from South America, not Asia, so this appears to be in the wrong section...

[dpm1]

How did I get them in Asia? I already knew they are a Venezuelan species...D'oh!

Confusion abounds regarding the life span with only the original report offering any info on the issue
http://cires.colorado.edu/limnology/pub ... Pub101.pdf*
It does say they appear annual based on the lack of adults following the breeding season, however there is also a question mark over this as it was a restricted catch area.

*thanks to bekateen. Don't know where the smiley came from as it was cut&paste

[bekateen]

There is something wrong with your link, either because it's missing the "http" or because there is a smiley face in front of it. The working link is http://cires.colorado.edu/limnology/pub ... Pub101.pdf.

[Marc van Arc]

How did I get them in Asia? I already knew they are a Venezuelan species...D'oh!

In that case you should have posted your thread in the South-American (Everything else) forum instead of the Asian forum. That is what Suckermouth means and he puts it very politely - unlike yourself....

Could one of the mods pls move this to S-AM everything else?

[dpm1]

How did I get them in Asia? I already knew they are a Venezuelan species...D'oh!

In that case you should have posted your thread in the South-American (Everything else) forum instead of the Asian forum. That is what Suckermouth means and he puts it very politely - unlike yourself....

I fail to see how my post was 'very impolite' as it was clearly a self-deprecating comment regarding an avoidable error, and agreeing with Suckermouth as it clearly stated I already knew they were a Venezuelan species.
...
In case theres any confusion
Wikipedia:
"D'oh!"...is a catchphrase used by the fictional character Homer Simpson...It is typically used when Homer injures himself, realizes that he has done something stupid, or when something bad has happened or is about to happen to him.

[Marc van Arc]

Ha, that's were things went wrong! Over here the youth used it (luckily it is hardly ever used by now) to blame other people for doing silly or stupid things, which caused me to misinterpret your reply. Sorry for that!

On topic: Entomocorus is certainly no species that gets very old, yet I've kept several specimens well over 3 years. Besides, their deaths were my fault, not theirs. I guess that their life span would equal same sized Auchenipteridae, like smaller Tatia and Centromochlus. Ime that would be around 5 to 6 years.

[Shane]

Just by chance.. my brother was kind enough to take all my old camcorder tapes of collecting in Venezuela and have them transferred to DVD. Some very good footage of us collecting this fish in the llanos. Now I just need to figure out how to break the DVDs into video clips I can post.
-Shane