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Is it the right one?

looks same like mine on the
left hand side on the picture,right one is unknown for me.I know is some sturisoma spp.
look at picture,both males any way,about 6 inches long,likes towards each other.




Thomas

How big they are?

About 4.5 inches.

You see

For me if very hard to indentify sturisomas,specialy when they are young.It is better to wait,till they will grow up.

I will try to find You some more info.

Rgrds

Tom

After settling in the tank, it`s silvery and black in colour.
Nice fish.

Hi Birger,
Your fish look like Sturisoma aureum, Common Sturisoma sp. Colombia, to me.
Even among the fry I'm raising, some are very dark and others are light colored. They vary right away in color after hatching Their parents consisted of a dark male and a light female. Other than degree of pigmentation, their morphology and color patterns were the same except the secondary sexual characteristics like the beards breeding males grow.

I don't have a clue what species katmandu shows in the right side fish in his photo. I haven't seen one of those before.

Birger your's looks like Sturisoma festivum, i have 3

Hi Larry,

apistomaster wrote: I don't have a clue what species katmandu shows in the right side fish in his photo. I haven't seen one of those before.

This is a Sturisomatichthys species.
The coloration is similar to a undescribed species of columbia.

best regards
Norman

Hi Norman. I suspected as much but wasn't sure. I think I read that these two genera may be combined under Sturisoma. Anyone else heard of this possibility?

I think the vast majority of Sturisoma being exported are S. aureum. S. festivum may be synonymous with S. aureum and S. panamense is virtually never found unless you catch your own. My reasoning behind this statement is the less developed OTF export business in Panama.The Central American fish have been, until very recently, mainly brought in by individuals specializing in Cichlids. There are some nascent Central American exporters but their contributions have been negligible up to the present.
They are not even close to the scale of those from Colombia, Brazil and Peru OTF business. (OTF=Ornamental Tropical Fish)
There may be some loosing up up of the Governmental restrictions in Venezuela soon but by and large most typically Venezuelan species are collected in the Colombian reaches of the Orinoco or smuggled into Colombia from Venezuela.

I would agree with Larry and Norman.

Katmandu's fish are and .

Birger's fish looks to be , but Shane's experience is that there could be a variety of different forms exported from Colombia. See here.

It could also be a young tank bred . Were they wild caught or tank bred?

racoll... I don't know if they are WC ore tank bred, but looking at the pick of the juvenile festivum,it`s a spitting image of mine.

Hi all
i agree with Raccol .male festivum and female sturisomatichthys (bought mine as s .magdalense)
i have bred both and they will crossbreed so keep an eye on them
cheers flash

Birger,
Your fishes is S. aureum and they look tank bred in my eyes, one of them are a little deformed too which is very common when they are tank bred.

Tom or Thomas,
Your fishes is S. aureum and a fully grown male probably sligtly over 20 cm and the second to the right is what the other say...Sturisomatichthys sp "Colombia".

Thats my opinion

Janne

Janne, your the expert

Tom or Thomas,
Your fishes is S. aureum and a fully grown male probably sligtly over 20 cm

I'm not sure about this Janne.

One of the diagnostic features of S. aureum mentioned in Wels Atlas I (Evers & Seidel) is the absence of fin filaments, which katmandu's fish clearly has.

My view is that it is S. festivum.

I agree with racoll.
Next to the present of filaments, all the fins are too large for S.aureum.

best regards
Norman

I have this book too but S. aureum get small and short filaments too...just a few mm. S. festivum and their filaments are measured in cm's, the pattern on the body is also different between S. aureum and S. festivum. The dark and wide pattern on each side from the snout to the dorsalfin is straight at S. festivum and at S. aureum it's broken exactly in the same way as the picture from Tom/Thomas.
In the Cat-eLog looking on the pictures of you can see both S. festivum and S. aureum and you will see the differencies. There are a picture "Dorsal view" that shows clearly what I mean and that is S. festivum, another picture "Dorsal view of male's bristles" is S. aureum.

Janne

If the relative length of Sturisoma tail filaments is a diagnostic feature, then instead of Sturisoma aureum, as most seem to believe my fish were/are(sold them) I've been most likely breeding Sturisoma festivum. Intact filaments grew as long as 4 cm.
This is all the best I could do to show their tail filaments but it at least shows several specimens and their patterns well.

If the relative length of Sturisoma tail filaments is a diagnostic feature

Sorry, should have made this clear: not including caudal filaments which most of the Loricariinae have.

The dark and wide pattern on each side from the snout to the dorsalfin is straight at S. festivum and at S. aureum it's broken

This would then make the photo of the female S. festivum in Wels Atlas I S. aureum, and the fish below both S. aureum too.

[Mod edit: images removed as they have been moved, and the acutal images no longer representing the message in this post --Mats]

racoll wrote:This would then make the photo of the female S. festivum in Wels Atlas I S. aureum

Yes, or a crossbred between the both species.

Janne

Hi Janne,

Janne wrote:The dark and wide pattern on each side from the snout to the dorsalfin is straight at S. festivum and at S. aureum it's broken exactly in the same way as the picture from Tom/Thomas.

I don't think so!
My large specimen of S.festivum with very large fins and very long filaments on all fins do not had straight dark pattern on the sides.
I think we shouldn't underrate some differences in coloration between specimen of one species of different localities.

best regards
Norman

Hi Norman,

I know I have seen pictures of your Sturisoma species for some years ago but I didn't remember if you mailed them to me or if you had a homepage.
Anyway, these are your pics from http://www.aqua2000ev.de.

This is S. festivum even if the dark pattern is not 100% straight it's close to that.

And this is S. aureum.


Janne

This is S. festivum even if the dark pattern is not 100% straight it's close to that.

This seems like quite an arbitrary character to me.

Hi Janne,

In the last years I have seen a lot of small differences in coloration and shapes within the species S.festivum.
S.aureum seems to have a relative constant pattern. All specimen I have seen (including yours) have always this brocken pattern.

The fist specimen on my photos is a female(!) S.festivum. The males pattern was similar, but a bit more broken.
The second specimen is not S.aureum! It is also a female Sturisomatichthys cf. tamanae.

best regards
Norman

Racoll wrote:This seems like quite an arbitrary character to me.

Maybe for you but in the same species S. festivum it's just small differencies in the pattern just as it's within S. aureum.
VC S. festivum is very rare in the trade but both species S. festivum and S. aureum have and are commersial bred in Czech Republic since the 80's, and some people suspect that these can have been crossbred under the years which make the identification very difficult.

Norman,
Your second pic is for me a typical Sturisoma species even if I can be wrong it's S. aureum, Sturisomatichthys have a different bodyprofil and not so high dorsal fins, shorter pectoralfins more like this.


Janne

Hi Janne,

The specimen on the picture is a breed of Mike Hemmann (Article in German ) and has several differences to Sturisoma species.
I keept the species a long time.

best regards
Norman

Even that I cant understand german so well I dont agree with the article, all pictures shows a Sturisoma species and very similare to S. aureum. The species on the pictures looks to be around 15-16 cm and not fully grown, for me it would be more correct to call this Sturisoma sp "Colombia" or use the name of the river where they was caught.
There have been a revision of the Sturisoma genus and I think we have to wait until that are published in public.

Janne

Hi Janne,

All the shown specimen (in the article and mine) are full grown! They just reach a size about 15cm.
The species is very similar to the description of Sturisomatichthys tamanae.

best regards
Norman

The revision was done in 2003 as a PhD.

Armbruster's PhD on the Hypostominae was finished in 1998 but published in 2004.

We may have to wait a while..........

To identify Sturisoma species is very controversial and there are much more wrong identifications that there are correct identifications. I would say that 90% of all pictures on the internet are wrong identifications in this genus, the same with the trade where almost all are or was sold as S. panamense even that both exporters and importers know that is/was wrong but an accepted name in the business. Today I think they are mostly exported under S. aureum.
Even that I know I can be wrong I dont agree with the article, maybe to stubborn to accept that a typical Sturisoma species would become another genus

I think we have to wait for the revision of the Sturisoma genus to be published before we come any further in this mess among Sturisoma and their relatives. Hopefully that will bring everything in the right place, before that we all are speculating.

Janne