Whiptail from French Guyana

[Karsten S.]

Hello all,

last year I have caught four juvenile Rineloricaria in a small creek (Crique Maurice) which drains into the Mana river in French Guyana. Meanwhile the sexes are obvious and luckily I have two pairs. The are rather slender with a acute snout and relatively small (~10 cm):



On the clear sand the are rather pale and the bands are not clearly visible. In the tank the contrast is slightly higher but it's more difficult to take decent pictures...

Detail pic of the male:


One female:


What do you think ?

Cheers,

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

the female in the tank:



Cheers,

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

no one any idea ?!
The eggs are green if this should help.

The only species mentioned for Mana river system in checklist of LeBail et al. is Rineloricaria aff. stewarti. Compared to the picture of R. stewarti in the book from LeBail et al. (showing only first half of the fish) it looks definitely different patternwise in some aspects (possibly partly due to white sand some markings are faded).
Body proportions could match.

Are there any detailed picture that would help to get an definite ID ?

Cheers,

[catfishchaos]

Hemiloricaria platyura

seems to be the only species in the Cat-elog from French Guyana, specifically the Mana river system. that the best I can do though

[Erlend D Bertelsen]

It looks what you germans call Hemiloricaria "Weissdorn", and according to experts this fish is the same as Hemiloricaria platyura. I have som myself, and they also have green eggs.

[Karsten S.]

Hello both,

thanks for your replies.

Hemiloricaria platyura seems to be the only species in the Cat-elog from French Guyana, specifically the Mana river system.

then this seems to be incomplete, LeBail et al. (2000) mention two species for FG, besides this one also H./R. stewarti. In the checklist of fresh water fishes of FG (LeBail et al, 2012) H./R. platyura is only listed for Comté and Approuague rivers (which might again be incomplete).
H./R. stewarti is listed for most of the rivers systems including Mana.

L 42 is partly considered to be H./R. platyura and probably this is the source for the assumed occurence of H./R. platyura in Mana river system.
The original DATZ picture is of not much use for ID'ing as it doesn't show much more than the head. But as I don't see any pre-dorsal scutes with well developped odontodes (described as typical for H./R. platyura in LeBail et al., 2000) I'm quite sure that this identity is wrong.

Covain et al. (2015) have listed in their phylogeny a multitude of whiptail forms from FG:
- R. platyura again only from Approuage and Caw river (second one also very close to Approuague).
- a species complex they named R. aff. stewarti from several locations beween Suriname river in Suriname and Oyapock river, that might represent several species that are closely related.
This species complex is clearly genetically different from the nominal species (complex) R. stewarti that originates from several rivers systems from Coppename in Suriname and further west until Essequibo river and Rio Takutu.

Just going by officially published catching locations L 42 would also belong to this complex R. aff. stewarti.

--

H./R. platyura can be IMHO excluded as well developped odontodes on the pre-dorsal scutes are missing in my specimen.
I assume that my whiptails also belong to that R. aff. stewarti group and going by the origin it might be L 42 unless there is another whiptail species in Mana river system that was missed in scientific publications up to now.
LeBail et al., 2000 mention five dark crossband for both species from FG, in H./R. stewarti two are below the dorsal fin. Mine have six with the first one at the dorsal fin base usually hardly visible and the second one at the end of the dorsal fin, so mine have one extra band...
As this character (number of crossbands) is mentioned in (nearly) all species descriptions I assume that this is not variable within one species or are there any counter-examples ?
I also have a form from Suriname river which is very similar (morphology & pattern) but it has only five bands.
So what is the conclusion out of all this, I don't really know...

--

It looks what you germans call Hemiloricaria "Weissdorn", and according to experts this fish is the same as Hemiloricaria platyura.

Usually this one is also called Hemiloricaria sp. "Amazonien" and I agree that yours should be this one, but not mine (dorsal fin shape and pattern is different, snout shape is different, missing pre-dorsal scute with well developped odontodes, number of crossbars is different,...).
AFAIK Hemiloricaria sp. "Amazonien" has five dark crossbands and in the species desciption of H. platyura there are "six broad black crossbands" mentioned, whatever this means...

Cheers,

[Jools]

I'm not familiar with more than is written here on this topic. However, would it be safe to call your fish

L042

until perhaps some time until the R. aff. stewarti group (in which L042 seems to be) is resolved?

Jools

[Karsten S.]

Hi Jools,

well, as already stated the problem is that going by the DATZ picture this could be nearly any whiptail (besides H. platyura). Just going by the location (my whiptails are from the same drainage as L 42) is not convincing for me.

I prefer not to speculate... L 42 is for me a "defined form" for which I currently don't know any pictures that would be good enough for ID'ing.
Hemiloricaria aff. stewarti is just a hint that it's similar but not same as H. stewarti which only is listed for rivers west of Suriname river (but might also appear in Suriname river).

I think I better call them Hemiloricaria aff. stewarti "Crique Maurice" for the moment.
My groups from Crique Margot, Crique Grand Laussat and Suriname river look quite similar.

Cheers,

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

meanwhile I received one picture of the original group from Ernst-Otto von Drachenfels which he published among others as L 42 in the DATZ. The picture is quite old and the quality is not perfect but with this H./R. platyura can be ruled out without any doubt. He also confirmed that L 42 is certainly not this species.

He also follows the same argumentation that L 42 most probably belongs to this species group called H./R. aff. stewarti. As my specimen came from the Mana drainage and I don't see any significant difference to the picture from Ernst-Otto I think it's safe now to call them L 42.

Cheers,

[Jools]

Karsten,

Would it be at all possible to ask Ernst-Otto if he would be willing to allow us to use a picture to show L042? It seems it will be a lost phantom species if it is not published online. It will also help us keep all these things in the right places!

Of course, the usual credit and copyright would be given.

Cheers,

Jools