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anyone in the states seen any blue-eyed panaques lately...ive heard there was some sort of disaster in the harvesting area for these puppies...anyone know more

ben

This may help.

HH (and others),
I wrote that back when I (we) thought that Panaque suttonorum was the blue eyed pleco of the trade. However, I now strongly believe that the blue eyed pleco is an undescribed species restricted to the Rio Magdalena. You will see some sources calling the blue eye Panaque cochliodon but this is most likely incorrect as well. P. cochliodon was described from the Rio Cauca, an Amazon (or south flowing) drainage, and the Magdalena is a Caribbean (or north flowing) drainage. We have several potential answers...
1) Steindachner was incorrect with regards to the type locality of his specimens and they really came from the Rio Magdalena. Evidence in support, I have seen no subsequent records of P. cochliodon from the Cauca. This is the same problem with P. suttonorum. It has never been seen again in the Maracaibo Basin since the holotypes were collected by Schultz. Ed Ruiz has spent two years looking for this fish and has taken good samplings at the holotype location without ever encountering it. We need to compare "blue eye Panaques" to the holotype of P. cochliodon to answer this.
2) P. cochliodon is present in the Cauca AND Magdalena systems. Not impossible, but pretty hard to believe.
3) The blue eye is simply a new Panaque from the Rio Magdalena. Nobody ever described it because a well known taxonomist (I'll leave the name out) said that they were P. suttonorum. If you read the P. suttonorum description it is very clear that it is not the blue eye Panaque of the trade. Not to mention that it seems pretty unlikely that a fish described from the Maracaibo Basin would also be present in the Magdalena system. Remember that the Maracaibo basin was the original mouth of what today are the Orinoco and Amazon rivers. The fishes of Maracaibo Basin have been trapped in the hole that is the basin alone ever since the Amazon broke broke out into the Atlantic and the Orinoco broke through the Guyana Shield. This makes the Maracaibo fishes very interesting as it could be argued that they represent "relic" populations of the Amazon/Orinoco's fish fauna.

I think it most likely (my theory) that the blue eye has yet to be described. P. cochliodon may exist and the lack of records could be due to the fact that the Cauca has not been under any sort of government control for 40 years (actually probably ever). The status of the blue eye is one I hope to solve during my time here.
-Shane

Shane,

the Rio Cauca, an Amazon (or south flowing) drainage.

Very interesting. This seems to be the first river flowing uphill.

André

Good luck Shane

Thanks for helping get the sitution of these fish a bit cleared out, it was very confusing only a while back, with the ScotCat article being the only source of any half-reliable information on this fish online.

ahh, very interesting. is it uncommon for fish to come from different drainages? I know there are at least a few genus that are both amazonian and carribean, but not any specific species.

Just wondering... Isn't there a connection between the Orinoco and the Amazon somewehere?

Yes, the Casiquiare and the Pimichin links the Rio Negro to the Orinoco.

Sorry, guys,
but didn´t you read André`s post?
The Rio Cauca ist flowing in the Rio Magdalena and then in the Caribian Sea.

Where is there a connection to the Amazonas or Orinoco today?