Pseudolithoxus stearleyi?

[Catfish-ologist]

I know I haven't posted here in a while but I was looking at the recent addition/change of

Pseudolithoxus stearleyi

in the Cat-elog.

This species has been in its own genus Soromonichthys since its description in 2011. I can't find any recent papers stating this change to Pseudolithoxus. In my personal opinion the morphology looks way off for Pseudolithoxus just on a quick glance at the images.

Can someone please shed some light on this change? Its a lovely fish, its a shame that the locality is so remote, I would love an import to the U.S

Cheers!

Sean

[bekateen]

Hi Sean,

There's an older 2015 source:
Lujan NK, Armbruster JW, Lovejoy NR, López-Fernández H. Multilocus molecular phylogeny of the suckermouth armored catfishes (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) with a focus on subfamily Hypostominae. Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2015a; 82:269–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2014.08.020
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0314003054

More recently, this paper stands on the older paper: Armbruster, J. W. and N. K. Lujan 2025. New tribe-level classification of Hypostominae (Loricariidae) based on optimization of morphological states on DNA-based relationships, with descriptions of three new tribes and two new genera. Neotropical Ichthyology v. 22 (no. 4): 1-32.
https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-0224-2024-0108
https://www.scielo.br/j/ni/a/Ds3Z4ckbjc ... K/?lang=en

Cheers, Eric

[Catfish-ologist]

Thanks Eric! I hadn't seen the 2025 Paper. Very interesting.

Cheers!

- Sean