Bad fishbase link

[DeepFriedIctalurus]

Just thought I'd point out that in the species profile for Ancistrus punctatus, the link to fishbase actually points to Ancistrus dolichopterus there.

Figured it was just a leftover from previous mistaken identities, but thanks again for such a wonderful database!

[MatsP]

It's not. It's a case of automatically generated fishbase-links, and fishbase using it's synonym list to map fish that it thinks are synonyms to it's valid name. In this case it's the fact that fishbase isn't up to date with the latest science on this species [which was previously a junior synonym with A. dolichopterus, but is now considered valid (again)]. This is of course also a matter of "who do you follow" type thing. Generally, the Cat-eLog uses the Catalog of Fishes, rather than Fishbase for it's scientific naming and what is a different species and what isn't.

There are several other species that are either not the same name in Cat-eLog and Fishbase, or fishbase thinks that two species in the Cat-eLog are actually the same. Again, it's a case of "which scientific group do you follow", as scientists will often do merging and splitting of species based on different research, and you can't really say that one is more right than another... It's just a case of following one of the "lines" that some group publishes...

[There are also several cases where Fishbase doesn't have an entry - there's still a link from Cat-eLog to Fishbase for those fishes too... I think even L-numbers have a fishbase link, which DOESN'T make sense if they aren't also scientifically described - but it makes the page-design a bit easier...]

Of course, there may be details here that I've got wrong. Jools may be able to fill something in if that's the case...

--
Mats

[Jools]

Mats is correct, when you hit fishbase with a scientific name that it considers a synonym, it takes you to the current valid species which is what happens with A. punctatus.

At some point I need to reclassify what I have as A. punctatus as an undescribed species. It is formally a synonym as discussed above but the species we have pictured grows much larger. There is a catelog post on this topic and I'll catch up with it there (therefore resolve this post).

On the fishbase link thing, the catelog is a little cleverer than you think, it checks the specific epithet for brackets or underscores and doesn't display a fishbase link if they are present.

Thus, Ancistrus sp(l045) won't show a link, Ancistrus punctatus will.

Jools