PlanetCatfish.com

Hello!

What do you think about this :





Otocinclus "punk"
I have an idea, but it seems so impossible...

Thank'k a lot!

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Cathy

There are two possibilities: Otocinclus affinis (the real one) or Otocinclus tapirape.

Unfortunately the tapirape description is not detailed enough wrt live pigmentation to allow me to tell those two species apart based on those photos, and while the golden sheen suggests affinis, the caudal pigmentation and fairly wide lateral pigment band suggests tapirape.

In the absence of capture locality data, and based on those pictures, I can't tell which of those two species it is you have, only that it's one of those two.

You wouldn't happen to know where they were captured?

EDIT: I have never seen any tapirape except the preserved one pictured in the original description; if anyone here has seen a living O. tapirape, perhaps that person would be kind enough to comment?

hello,

Mike_Noren wrote:There are two possibilities: Otocinclus affinis (the real one) or Otocinclus tapirape.

When I saw the fishes, I thought affinis.
I'd never heard about Otocinclus tapirage. After a look to fishbase, it seems to come from center Brazil, Goias.
Have you got any precisions about the water parameters for this specie? Is it very different than O. affinis?

Unfortunately the tapirape description is not detailed enough wrt live pigmentation to allow me to tell those two species apart based on those photos, and while the golden sheen suggests affinis, the caudal pigmentation and fairly wide lateral pigment band suggests tapirape.

The only picture I found is an holotype (beurk!).

In the absence of capture locality data, and based on those pictures, I can't tell which of those two species it is you have, only that it's one of those two.

You wouldn't happen to know where they were captured?

Unfortunaly, no capture locality data .
I can take other pictures, the 19 fishes are in 3 tanks, may be one will stay more than a second in place...

EDIT: I have never seen any tapirape except the preserved one pictured in the original description; if anyone here has seen a living O. tapirape, perhaps that person would be kind enough to comment?

A lot of thanks for your help!

--
Cathy

Edit : O. tapirape is suppose to have a size about 2.5cm. In my "team", females are about 4cm, males about 3cm sl.

I wouldn't use the Fishbase "size" as a "can't be because the size is wrong" - it is an indication of the largest collected sample, but that's nothing to say that it's the max size of the fish as such. There are plenty of examples where the "max size" in Fishbase is half or a third of a normal size fish.

It is far from impossible that fish from Goias reaches the trade, several rivers that do seem to have some fish exported from them are in that region.

I doubt that there's a huge difference in Care/Husbandry between the two species.

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Mats

Perhaps the best plan would be to ask one (or both) of the authors of the description of Otocinclus tapirape.

Jools

Hi,

I totaly agree with you.
But more I try to get informations about this fish, less I get some

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Cathy

MatsP wrote:I wouldn't use the Fishbase "size" as a "can't be because the size is wrong" - .../...

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Mats

Hi,

done,I just hope that he will understand something

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Cathy

Jools wrote:Perhaps the best plan would be to ask one (or both) of the authors of the description of Otocinclus tapirape.

Jools

Please report what you find out; I am quite curious myself.
Also, once the fishes are identified, please consider submitting your photos to the cat-elog.

they don't look like any affinis I've seen before

Hi,

Some news about this Otocinclus...
This is the answer of Cristiano Moreira :

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Chère Catherine,

I am sorry to say that I probably will not be of much help in this question.


We described the Otocinclus tapirape based solely on preserved specimens, so I don´t really know how it looks like alive.
Moreover the pigmentation pattern of preserved species of both O. tapirape and O. affinis are very much the same and their distribution overlaps, so neither the pigmentation nor the locality will help you solve this issue.
The only solution to this would be to preserve a specimen and examine it under a microscope, but I believe given this circunstances you will prefer to call it an unknown species of Otocinclus

Bonne chance,
Cristiano
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I can give one or two fishes is it's necessary.
Yann give's me the fish description, I will read it and try to understand
To be continued...

@ diburning : Do you have some pictures of O. affinis?

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Cathy, 1st, take other pictures...