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I looked through all the L#'s and the LDA#'s and I think I have narrowed down the field for this baby. It's less then 6months old, and about 3inches, I picked it up because it looked unique. I am wondering if this is one of the undescribed genus. It has 8 spines in the dorsal, there'e no sign or anything around the nose area, just the sideburns or wiskers, but lookes like the start of growth around the mouth. After looking through the cat-eLog I think I have it narrowed down to Acanthicus sp. (L193) Ancistrini sp. (L269) Pseudancistrus niger (L039) Pseudancistrus sp. (L056).Anyone have an idea, or any other suggestions. I have other pics if needed.

DAve

As far as I know - I only have 3 species of Ancistrus - the 'whiskers' are normal for all Ancistrus

Actually, the fish does look guite normal to me, so I'd guess A sp cf cirrhosus - but I'm not one of the geniusses on this side

Hi,

the "sideburns" are in fact the interopercular odontodes (or something to that effect), the hooked form typical for Ancistrus. I'd go with A. cf. cirrhosus.

If they are visible the whole time your fish has some kind of deformations, usually they can be retracted.

Yes, looks like a female to me too.

Get some underwater shots and a capture locality, and we might have a chance of identifying it.

sunfish wrote:Hi,

the "sideburns" are in fact the interopercular odontodes (or something to that effect), the hooked form typical for Ancistrus. I'd go with A. cf. cirrhosus.

If they are visible the whole time your fish has some kind of deformations, usually they can be retracted.

The interopercular odontodes do retract, and only seem to come out if stressed or another fish is being agressive. Due to my location all pleco's are imports, so a capture location is impossible, it was sold to me as "a common spotted pleco $3.99 CDN"
I thank all for their input, and looked up A. cf. cirrhosus, does this mean that the nose protusions (bristle nose) will grow in as the pleco grows. At present there dosen't apear to be any indication of them, it was due to there being no sign of them that I made my possible Id's.

DAve

It will only grow a big 'tache if it's a male. This may well be a female, especially as the part around the ventral fins looks a bit "fat", and the size of the fish looks fairly mature so that a male would have at least a bit of growth (depends on the size of the hand holding it, but unless the hand is tiny, I'd estimate that the fish is around 2.5-3" (6-7.5cm), and males will at least start groiwng "bristles" at that size).

Females SOMETIMES grow a small amount of bristles too, but most of the time they have no growths at all.

Note also that "bristles" is not particularly accurate, as the growths on the nose is not at all "sharp" or "bristly", but rather soft and floppy - if you take a male out of the water, the bristles will collapse.

--
Mats

It is about 3", and less then 6months I would say. I got it about a 6 weeks ago at about 1.5" and it dissapeared. It reappeared yesterday when doing a check of all driftwood, decorations, and other object looking for strays, and excess meats( I feed lots of dew worms, and shrimp and look for uneaten before it spoils) Since then its dissapeared again into the driftwood.
So I guess letting it grow some, will tell me more about it as it develops.

Dave