Is this Pinirampus pirinampu?

[Viktor Jarikov]

Jeff Rapps is offering for sale. Would like to confirm his ID.

2-3" 35.00 ea. Peru 'blue jumper cat' juveniles; active, strong swimming, showy & lg growing Pim in easily shipped juvenile size.

[bekateen]

Viktor, where do you find all the cool and unusual fish you have? (please don't say "Jeff Rapps"; I read that much).

Cheers, Eric

[Viktor Jarikov]

Bump. I need help, guys.

Hey Eric the usual suspects are Wesley Wong Rare Fish, Raymond Chan Amazing Fish, Jeff Rapps TUIC, Mark Chen Discus Origins, snookn21 freshwatertropicalsonline.com, WetSpot, etc. Give them a whirl ;)

[Viktor Jarikov]

I had written to Jeff to ask if he was sure of the ID and if all the barbels on the fish were wide and flat and he said yes. He kindly attached two more pics:

[Erlend D Bertelsen]

I got this from Peru, and later ID as

Pinirampus pirinampu

, if thats to any help.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you very much! Looks awful lot alike. How long have you had yours? What's the growth rate like? What does it like to eat, etc.? Is the snout damaged?

[amiidae]

I have seen specimen hit over 1ft in less than a year.

Exallodontus aguanai

is another look alike cat (juvenile) that also commonly shipped as "jumper cat"

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thanks, Ben! Wow. I think this is the smaller-growing catfish that I saw several times at John Kreatsoulas (aka snookn21, freshwatertropicalsonline.com) fish house in Ft. Myers, FL, USA 1-2 years ago.

To my ignorant eye they look essentially identical! Perhaps only the barbels are thicker on the pirinampu?

[Jools]

Length of the barbles is a quick guide to tell the two genera apart.

Exallodontus

they are about half the length of the fish.

Jools

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you, Jools! According to this, Erlend's fish is the smaller Exallodontus, not Pinirampus?

While Jeff's fish appears to have barbels reaching way past half the body mark.

[amiidae]

It is not hard to ID them apart if you have seen both fishes before but not that clear based on photos. Generally the eyes, head shape and body color are quite diff.

This cat was abt 7-8 in TL when I took the shot.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you, Ben! The last one is Exallodontus, I guess.

So what do you think the fish in question is and what is Erlend's fish?

[amiidae]

Personally I think both are P. pirinampu and the fish in question is also P. p even though I have not seen specimen of this size.

My "P. p" is currently above 10inch.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thank you, Ben. Is the last fish in your post not an Exallodontus? Is this photo not from the Exallodontus Cat-eLog page?

Or are you saying it was ID'ed as Exallodontus and the page was made up but now you are having doubts because the fish grew over 10"?

To me it looks like the barbels on your fish and Erlend's fish are roughly half of the body length.

As for the OP fish, I got three from Jeff Rapps. If I manage to keep them alive, we'll see what they will grow into. They are tiny, ~2.5".

[amiidae]

No. diff fish.

If you google image search, you will see larger P. p. specimen has shorter barbels.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Thanks, Ben. Problem is that with google image search you don't know the ID of the fish you are looking at, so suppositions of yours and of the people posting the fish pile up on top of other suppositions making the outcome unreliable.

I tend to trust the images on FishBase, PCF, ScotCat but anything else has proven wrong many times. Even the images on these three sites have been known to be wrong but at least 90% or more are trustworthy.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Hopefully there will be pictures later from Rpul here https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... pu.688050/

He is in UK and is aiming to get P. p.

[Viktor Jarikov]

I got a trio from Jeff. It's been about 2-3 months now.

Some info is in these threads:
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... st-7755145
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... st-7628465

June 14, 2017 update - with tank mates in 240 gal:

[Viktor Jarikov]

Cross-referencing a related thread and ID woes... Another catfish purchased under the same enigmatic name of Blue jumper catfish: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 88#p310388