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I bought this guy as a Recife Plec LDA24. There are no photos of LDA 24 on here, but there is in the Aqualog All L Numbers book and I don't think he looks like the photo there which has the correct spot pattern but not the correct shape.

I think it looks more like L266 in the All L Numbers book, again there is no photo on here. Everything matches except the teeth layout is slightly different.

Anyone any ideas?

Side view:


Back View:


Underside:


and finally close-up of the mouth:


This fish is very active and hangs out around the front of the tank all the time, first down for food and was not bothered by a flood light on the tank for the photos.

Anyone, any ideas???

Ok, since no one else has answered, I supppose my uneducaten ramblings may start something off...

LDA24 [That's the first one I found flipping through the pages in my Aqualog] is a Hypostomus (possibly in the Cochliodon group, but stilla Hypsotomus). But the body-shape of your fish is wrong for this one - like you say.

L266 is also a Hypostomus, this one definitely in the Cochliodon group. Aqualog says "=L231" on the comment on this fish - I don't agree. L231 has a different body-shape (similar to LDA24).

I think L266 is closer than LDA24, but I'm not at all certain that your fish is either.

I'm quite certain that your fish is a Hypostomus in the "Cochliodon" group, which is the fish that formerly was separated from Hypostomus based on their teeth - but Armbruster and others have placed them in Hypostomus.

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Mats

Cheers Mat.

I thought mine match L266 perfectly except for the top row of teeth the angle they are set is slightly different. I was not sure if there would be that level of variance between fish of the same species or not. Thankfully Aqualog provided a mouth shot for the L266, Otherwise I think I would have called in a perfect match, would you agree?

Daragh

I'm not so sure. The spots on the fish in Aqualog is much smaller than your fish - which could be an age thing. It's not an impossible match, but I wouldn't call it a perfect match either.

Your fish also have a white underside, which doesn't seem to be on the Aqualog fish - again, it could be the age of the fish, but it could also be a different species.

One thing that would help a whole lot is which country the fish came from. If it's a fish from Recife, it's certainly not L266 - L266 is from Peru, so all the way from the opposite side (at almost the widest point) of the South American continent.

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Mats

Mat

Funny you should mention the underside, I meant to say in the original post that all the time I was trying to get the photos for this post when the fish landed on the glass it's underside was much darker. I took several shots. It was only later when I have moved the modelling light on to another tank I noticed the underside was much more white and quickly got the shot posted above in OP. Originally the underside looked like the photo below. Must be a stress thing.

Just bumping this to see as time has passed, does anyone have any better idea on ID. The fish has grown a littel since, about 7.5" TL.

LDA24 [That's the first one I found flipping through the pages in my Aqualog] is a Hypostomus (possibly in the Cochliodon group, but stilla Hypsotomus). But the body-shape of your fish is wrong for this one - like you say.

Agreed. Hypostomus LDA24 is not thought to be a member of the Hypostomus cochliodon species group.

L266 is also a Hypostomus, this one definitely in the Cochliodon group. Aqualog says "=L231" on the comment on this fish - I don't agree. L231 has a different body-shape (similar to LDA24).

Aqualog is in my opinion wrong. The fish pictured in Aqualog is a member of the H. cochliodon species group, but is a very different fish to the "real" Hypostomus L266 pictured in DATZ and Wels Atlas II. The real L266 is not considered to a member of the H. cochliodon species group by Evers and Seidel.

I would say your fish is a member of the H. cochliodon species group, and is likely to be either (L050), or . I would favour the latter.

BINGO found it.

Looks like this fish is Hypostomus sp. L310

The locality data matches, they are from Bahia!

If someone else can confirm this, Jools I'm sure would like to add the pictures to the site...

Excellent, thank you racoll.

I will see if he will pose for some more up-to-date photos