What is a pleco?

[fmueller]

I recently ran into somebody who claims that a bristlenose catfish is not a pleco.

Of course it's not a common pleco (Hypostomus plecostomus), but the term pleco is more widely used for all suckermouth catfish / members of the family Loricariidae. Bristlenose catfish are Ancistrus sp., Ancistrus is a genus in the family Loricariidae, which makes bristlenose catfish plecos.

Am I wrong?

[panaque]

You’re not wrong

[Jools]

You are wrong, but only because I'm being pernickety. The term pleco is most accurately used to describe a handful of sub-families within the Loricariidae, so Pleco does not equal Loricariidae. Almost exclusively, today Pleco =

Hypostominae

. One also wouldn't call a

Chiloglanis

a pleco.

Some older background which is less nuanced and supports your view: https://www.planetcatfish.com/shaneswor ... +Say+Pleco

Jools

[fmueller]

Thanks! I am an old guy, so I'll go with the old background!

[Karsten S.]

Hi,

another thing that IMHO is definitely wrong is this:

common pleco (Hypostomus plecostomus)

Hypostomus plecostomus is not at all common (in the hobby), but the so-called "common pleco" is regularly mis-identified as Hypostomus plecostomus which is more or less not available in the pet trade.
At least this is my understanding that you use the term "common pleco" usually for Pterygoplichthys disjunctivus/pardalis.

Cheers,

[Shane]

The problem with the term "common pleco," at least in the U.S., is that it is basically a term used for any non-descript brownish member of Hypostominae. It is not a common name for a specific species, but more of a term to distinguish "common" plecos versus "fancy" plecos.
-Shane

[TwoTankAmin]

Or, maybe the use of the term pleco evolved because of our love to shorten/simplify everything. When was the last time anybody went for a computerized axial tomography scan? My last CAT scan was in August. It is the same reason L numbers are used more often than common or even identified names. Only scientists love the long stuff

When was the last time you told somebody you keep sucker mouth catfish from S. America rather than plecos or corydoras instead of corys? We humans like to keep things short and simple if we can.

If we can come up with a way to shorten things or to reduce them to simple abbreviations, we do. Texting is reducing us to just single letters and tiny images, Maybe in decade we will all communicate in single letters and emojis. Isn't that what the ancient Egyptians did 1,000s of years ago?

[bekateen]

And don't even start on "pl*co." Glad that's long gone.

Cheers, Eric