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Well... I´ve catch a lot of this young guys on the Rio araguaia drainage... they has about a 1cm... Somebody can say anything about what it can be???



Best regards, and sorry my english...

some Parotocinclus, but no idea about the species.

When I look at CLOFFSCA, there are three species that are roughly in the right area:
P. cristiatus (Coastal rivers near Ilheus, Bahia state)
P. prata (Upper Sao Francisco River)
P. spilosoma (Paraiba state)

We can definitely eliminate P. spilosoma on looks, and I don't think Araguaia is a "coastal river" by even the more loose meanings of coastal. Rio Araguaia isn't Sao Francisco either, so I think none of those are the right fish.

I had a look at Fishbase, and it's got Rio Araguaia listed as one of the bodies of water that you can search, but no Parotocinclus are listed there...

None of this means much, because often the data in Fishbase/CLOFFSCA is incomplete (i.e. no one has a complete list of ALL the fish that live in ALL bodies of water...).

But it becomes difficult to find the right species when the direct sources of information isn't bringing something to front...

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Mats

Hi people!

The Araguaia river is the bigger tributary of Tocantins River, and the fishes of this drainage have more contact with the amazon drainage...

I don´t belive in paratocinclus, exactaly cause the distance of drainages where paratocinclus where comonly found... In the same river, we found farowlella and sturissoma (i think). (I´ll take pictures of than on thursday), but both of than don´t show adipose fin.

At this time, i´m thinking that is a juvenily of a big pleco, maybe hipostomus or rineloricaria... What do u think??

Tank you, and sorry my english again...

I do think it's a Parotocinclus, it's general body-shape is similar to the other Parotocinclus (excluding P. jumbo and P. spilosoma which have slightly different body-shape). Compare it to for example [the pattern is not a match, but the body-shape is pretty close match]. Actually, this is a better match - still not the same colouration, but not that distant either.

Parotocinclus are found in many different parts of South America, and I would be more inclined to say that you've found a yet unidentified species than to say that it's not a Parotocinclus based on this photo.

There are Parotocinclus species found in the following "states":
Rio de Janeiro
Amazonas
Bahia
Para
Minas Gerais
Piaui
Ceara

Also Venezuela, Guyana

They are quite widespread, if we trust CLOFFSCA which is where I got this information, and the states I've listed are in all four general directions from the river you say you caught the fish in.

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Mats

Intersting... I´ve don´t know about the drainages in Amazonas e Para... So, they can occour in Araguaia drainage too...

Well... i´ll wating a month or too and see how they grow... hehehe

Hugs and tanks MatsP!!

Henrique,
I believe MatsP has it right, you have found a Paraotocinclus species. A rather cool looking one I might add. Try to catch some more and document everything carefully for aquarists and science. Send copies of all your information and as large a group of correctly preserved specimens as you can to an expert. Who knows, you may well have a new species and maybe someone will name it after you.
That really is an interesting little Loricaridid.
Larry Waybright

Hmm... Intersting... But i´ll wanting a month or two before sending, cause i really think that is a baby... They are too small do be adult... the bigger one of than don´t have 1,5cm...

Best regards,

Henrique

Try either Schizolecis sp. or Pseudotothyris spp., both Genera are closer in appearance and fit your collection locale better than Parotocinclus spp.

EDIT: The clear presence of an adipose fin might rule out the two Genera I just listed above...

Interesting find.

As P.aripuanensis is found in both the Xingu and Tapajos basins, could it not also be found in the Araguaia?

It looks identical too.

Henrique,

Nice find, IMHO... Looks like a Parotocinclus. Surely it's not a juvie Hypostomus or Rineloricaria, both are different and this fish looks more adult than a fry... That leads me to a small-sized species, and its look suggests Parotocinclus.

It looks almost identical to P. aripuanensis to me, BTW. And according to Fishbase, it only gets to 21 mm.

Best regards.

Daniel.

Shot in the dark....

Parotocinclus britskii? or the likes?

philtre wrote:Shot in the dark....

Parotocinclus britskii? or the likes?

Unlikely - given that P. bristki has a distribution of "Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela", and there are other species distributed in closer range - one of them being what Daniel shows in the link above - that is a much closer type locality of Mato Grosso state, only "one river away" from the locality of the fish in question... But I would hazard a guess that once sufficient research has been done, we'll have at least one species of Parotocinclus per larger river in South America - it's just that the science hasn't come far enough...

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Mats

Well... let´s continue with the araguaia´s cat fishes!

A little pimelodidae??





A farlowella (lovely fish!!!):







And a Sturissoma???

Looks like you have a great "fishing" hole for interesting catfish. Hope you can keep those photos coming, Some of the id are off but that is less important than showing what you are finding.

I agree with Larry - great place to fish...

However, I think it would be better to have a single thread for each species - it gets pretty busy discussing several species in the same thread...

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Mats

Interesting ....

In any case, check out this Japanese website
http://www.otosuki.com/otocin_photogall ... ranco.html
to see if you see anything vaguely similar.

and its other links here
http://www.otosuki.com/otocin_photogallery/gallery.html
the parotos are in the right column, the third chunk.


Any other interesting finds from your catch?

To be perfectly honest, I doubt that Parotocinclus britski would be present in Rio Branco either - it's probably another similar species - P. britski is listed as "Rio Orinoco basin and Atlantic coasta drainages of the Guianas" - which is quite some distance for the fish to swim in the Atlantic and up the Amazon river to get to Rio Branco...

I tried an automatic translation, but it didn't clarify on what grounds this was identified as a P. britski.


There are 20 species of Parotocinclus listed in CLOFFSCA, but I would suspect there are plenty more to be found...

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Mats

Hello people!

Mats, "Rio Branco" is a name of a city in Acre state (west amazon) and more than 3 river in amazon drainage... We have to know where "Rio branco" are they from... We have a "Rio branco" in Rio Negro drainage that look like have contact with some coastal drainages in the rain season... I´m not sure, but i´ve alredy hear about it...

Anyways, a Araguaia drainage is far away from all these places, and i´m with you in the idea that it will be a new specie...

Philtre, i´ve catch other things too: A Bunocephalos sp, some dwarf cichlids, that you can see in
http://forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?t=4824 and http://forum.apistogramma.com/showthread.php?t=4869
and a curious shrimp, that you can see there: http://www.aquahobby.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=33390

I catch few specimens of than all, and just the shrimps show adaption problems... All the other fishes are fine and adapted in new home...

The place is beautiful... next year, in the dry season, i´ll come back there to explore a little more...

Even if I dont know all the other species I think your last pics shows a .

Janne

Tanks Janne!! I think you´re right!!!!

It may well look similar to R. lancelota, but I don't think "Upper Amazon River, Peru" matches the location of the fish's capture.

I could be wrong tho'.

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Mats

Hi Mats!

The distribution of R. lanceolata includes occorrences in Paraguai drainage, and it indicates a large area of distribution... I think that the fish is really R. lanceolata or a very very very semelhant specie... Someone have the description? hehehe

Hugs and best regards!

Yes, looking at the "Occurances" in fishbase, I agree, it's widespread, being listed from just about everywhere except argentina and chile....

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Mats