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Hi guys,

This fish was imported fm Colombia but again, that may not necessary true that this fish was collected there.

What do you think of the ID ? Panaque cochliodon or Panaque suttonorum (as most pointing to P. suttonorum)

This fish is abt 8inches TL

in the bag


newly introduced in the tank (pix taken with bright light)

Panaque suttonorum = US$1800 up each.

Panaque cochliodon = A great deal less expensive.

It depends on what you think each species represents. I think (because I'm not sure at all) that is a Rio Magdalena fish and is the midnight black one we all saw in every fish store for $20 15 or so years ago, is a Maracaibo fish but might also be (wrong place, but, for me is the one that fits the description best, mainly because of white ring anterior of the caudal peduncle) and that this pictured fish is a Maracaibo fish that most folks will call but might not be.

Anyone any clearer???

Jools

I am no expert on any of the large Plecos nor have I ever had the pleasure to collect tropical fish.
Jools. I know you have personal experience in collecting in Venezuela. I only have my friend, Ed Ruiz, a Venezuelan national, who has told me of his experiences with the Maracaibo Panaque suttonorum. According to him, this species has never been common and now may be a threatened or endangered species which has become very difficult to find. He and another friend collected some specimens which they hoped to breed in pools as part of some university research project about 20 years ago. They did not succeed although they did have some success with breeding Pterophyllum altum and Uaru fernandopeyzi in these pools which were set up to be as ecologically correct as possible
No one in the USA has a direct source of any endemic Venezuelan fish except those found along the common borders of Colombia and Venezuela within the Orinoco drainage but not the Maracaibo drainage. Ed is certain that only P suttonorum occurs within the Maracaibo basin and that the very similar P. cochliodon comes from the Rio Magdalena drainage which is geographically isolated from the Maracaibo drainage by the intervening mountain range. This isolation is a fairly recent in geological terms and there has been relatively a short time for these 2 species to differentiate very much. Maybe not even long enough to become 2 distinct species depending upon one's taxonomic philosophical persuasion.
To the best of my knowledge, Oliver Lucanus, http://www.belowwater.com, Canada, is the only NA fish collector/importer to have managed to collect in person a few Panaque suttonorum from the Maracaibo basin into NA within the past year and only on one occasion.

I hope I was able to explain what I have been told as clearly as Jools.

Yes, that's what I'm saying, except I'm not entirely convinced P. suttonorum is the Maracaibo blue eye and also I would say (from several sources, including Oliver) that it's not the only Panaque in the Maracaibo.

We've seen these fish at a relatively small size, stressed, dead and alive, and at no point do they show a white ring around the tail, the description of P. suttonorum mentions this and doesn't mention a blue eye (although that means very little in itself). Given the decline of the blue eyed pleco in the Maraciabo, it's also possible that this white ringed Panaque suttonurum is extinct - apart from locality, L191 matches the description of P. suttonorum. The problem is the that photo in the description (1944) doesn't really show a white band, more of a slight paler band.


Jools
PS I know that even the catelog doesn't agree with me!

As most know I have spent some time collecting, and talking to collectors, in both Venezuela and Colombia. I have read and reread Schultz' description so many times I nearly have it memorized. I have seen Ed's photos and spoke to him extensively and have also seen Cesar Barrios' photos. I believe I have a copy of every scientific paper that mentions either sp. All of that said... I am not any clearer than anyone else on the subject.

As Jools said, we have yet to see a fish that matches Schultz' actual description. Schultz was very specific about the fish's coloration. P. suttonorum is an overall gray, has white fins that turn dusky closer to the body, and has a distinct white band at the caudal peduncle.

Problem: The photo in Schultz' description actually appears to just show an overall gray fish. What happened? Did Schultz describe the animal's live colors, but photo one of his preserved specimens much later...after preservatives had washed out the colors? Is the photo (which is black and white) over exposed? In any case it does not appear to match his description.

Problem: No one has ever come across a Panaque in Maracaibo that matches Schultz' description. Now before we write him off, the characteristics he describes are all found on various Panaque spp we know about. We just have not seen a single Panaque sp that displays them all. The fact that all these characteristics exist in the genus leads me to believe that Schultz described a fish that none of us have ever seen.

Problem: The only large Panaque found recently in Maracaibo is an overall gray. Is this Schultz' fish or are we just finding one (much more closely related or even synonymous with P. cochliodon) that Schultz did not?

We have to give Schultz some credit here. He described dozens of Venezuelan fishes and these descriptions have stood the test of time. If we are willing to do this, then we have to admit that none of the fishes coming from the Colombia/Venezuela border is P. suttonorum. They simply do not match the original description.
-Shane

I tend to agree with Shane, and would re-iterate the point about extinction. At some point I think I need to change the Maracaibo blue eye to Panaque sp. cf. cochliodon "Maracaibo". The description makes one think the fins would be like that of - water it down a but though and it does resemble older L191 where to fins lighten - the description even mentions black blotches on the body.

Also, as I understand it, the allocation of the name P. suttoni (as it was then) to the blue eyed pleco was made in general conversation by Isbrucker at the 1978 UK catfish convention in London and then it's use expanded via Sands COTW series. The point there is we can trace this ID to one single "call" in 1978. While from a leading expert, it may well have been wrong.

Jools

Is Schultz still alive?

If so, is it worth trying to contact him to see if he has anything to add to the story?

racoll wrote:Is Schultz still alive?

If so, is it worth trying to contact him to see if he has anything to add to the story?

No, he died in 1986.

Lots of interesting info.

fm a layman point of view, I can see the head profile of my fish is much slender than the "P. suttonorum" in the cat elog and I can see a few rows of spikes by the side of the "P. suttonorum" but there are none on my specimen.

Any advise on the above ?

Thanks

Back in 2006 I wrote Oliver.

“Hi again Oliver,
Find attached some pics. These are of a female P. suttonorum, over 50 cms long, which showed up in a "armadillo" fisherman's seine offshore of the the Catatumbo Delta. Remember Armadillo or Corroncho are the common names given to any suckermouth cat in Zulia and Eastern Colombia. The specimen in the pics was caught circa April of this year. Unfortunately the fisherman did not realize it was a Suttonorum until after having degutted it, but luckily enough, he reported the fish... so word has gotten around of the importance of this species and like you say, we know they're there. This particular specimen was donated to the Museum of Science of La Universidad del Zulia in Maracaibo. Unfortunately, the eyes sunk during the preservation process, but they're are clearly seen on one of the pics. I must thank Shane Linder for the pics, he e-mailed them to me as soon as he got them. Wil Cabezas relayed all the valuable info regarding the catch (he called me as soon as the fish arrived at the museum). Credit of the catch goes to Cesar Barrios, of Universidad de Los Andes (ULA) - though I bet he's not the guy in the pic... the real fisherman.
We continuously visited the Negro, the Yaza, the Santa Ana and also the Motatan (on the East Shore of the Lake) and many other rivers and smaller creeks countless times looking for suttonorum. Around 1987 Wil showed up with 7 small juvies (under 8 cm in length).
At present, we are learning more of their habits. They are not the deep creek, wood eating fish we thought the species was. They will go up these rivers and creeks mostly to breed. As adults they prefer more tranquile water and they will graze on whatever grows on wooden and concrete docks, oil well platform structures, etc. into the lake proper. The South Lake area still has superbly clean water, despite eventual oil spills caused by guerilla activity in the Upper Catatumbo, but the volume of water coming into the Lake from all these large rivers from the surrounding Northern Andes (Cordillera de Merida and Sierra de Perija) pushes all these pollutants out at a very fast rate. This area is relatively free of oil activity when compared to the North and Central blocks of Lake Maracaibo. A few other specimens have been reported, all captured towards the extreme Southern section of the lake between the Catatumbo Delta and Puerto Conchas / Encontrados. Unfortunately we are not sure where they end up, but we'e been told of an ex-pat oil worker from the U.S. that rides a crew boat off his rig every now and then offering interesting amounts for any live suttonorum. In anyway, the fisherman have come to the conclusion that these babies are not to be let off in Venezuelan currency.

Ed”


“AH , yes. There is my fish. I have been to the Rio Motatan many times, and even snorkeled in it looking for the damn blue eyes. My contact in Zulia is no longer there, and let us say he was not of the good kind. My friend in Maracaibo is now also no longer there.
I would love to make a trip to the Catatumbo and get the fish, if only because I have always liked the species for myself.
I know that they prefer still water, actually most of the other Panaque species do also when they are large adults.
It would be quite a trip to go to the upper Catatumbo....

Oliver”

In May 2007 a live male found its way to the hands of a friend of Wil’s who immediately called him. Seems Wil convinced him and the fish eventually made its way to the LUZ Museum of Science Aquarium. I think they now have a pair but do not know if they have bred it.
In November 2007 Oliver travelled to Venezuela and tapped the source successfully in the South Lake Maracaibo region and arranged the first large importation of P. suttonorum which he sold mostly to Japan. He also sent me a pic of himself posing in front o a Chavez propaganda billboard… just to piss me off, he knows how much I hate the guy.

Schultz explored and found “Suttonis” (I refer to the as LMBEP or Lake Maracaibo Blue Eyed Panaque whereas I refer to the Colombian fish as the RMBEP or Rio Magdalena Blue Eyed Panaque, respectively acknowledged as P. suttonorum and P. cochliodon) in several rivers in the Southwest and Southeast perimeter of Lake Maracaibo.
Up the Southeast Coast into the Andes Piedmont he found juveniles under a road bridge on the Motatan River just North of the town of Aguaviva. In the 1940’s this road was a two lane rural route only partly paved. Upstream of the Motatan the area was virtually virgin and Aguaviva was a tiny truckstop. Valera, the only town affecting the river had a population of less than 10.000 and was at least a hundred miles upstream.
Today Valera has around 100.000 inhabitants not including its suburbs and nearby towns. The Rio Motatan now runs through El Diluvio Reservoir before following a modified path to Lake Maracaibo. Hence what was thought to be a breeding niche for the species is very different today.
On the Southwest Coast, he reported the species at the fork of the Rio Yaza and Rio Negro (this Rio Negro is not the Amazon River tributary but a smaller river in the Rio Perija, South of Machiques, Zulia state). This was dangerous Motilon Indian territory in the 40’s and again the road was unpaved for the most part.
Until several years ago, the area of the Yaza/Negro junction was in private property in a cattle ranch belonging to the Urdaneta Brothers (Luis and Jose). Wil and I got permission to explore the area but we had bad luck with high water during our two visits. Local fisherman report larger LMBEP at below 4m depth. Wil had collected seven smaller juvies (> 8cm) circa 1986, later selling them to a foreign party at a price that allowed him to purchase a new car. At present this area has been affected by land invasions and expropriations sponsored by the government. I am not positive but several of the Urdaneta’s (who I am related with) have lost their lands, I am not sure if Luis has been affected.
As stated in the letter to Oliver back in 2006 now we know that larger LMBEP are a deeper dwelling out-in-the-Lake fish that enjoys the clean freshwater of South Lake Maracaibo which is an area that receives a very heavy and continuous circulation of Andean piedmont freshwater that pushes out and counterarrests the North to South currents in the Lake which is a moderately brackish estuary to the North.
The adults like to graze on the concrete well platforms that have a nice algal growth to considerable depths thanks to the clarity of the water in this area. Wil and I were simply looking for this fish in the wrong place.
We worked hard spreading the word of the importance and rarity of the species and educating local fisherman.
Cesar Barrios of La Universidad de Los Andes (ULA-Merida) had his own passionate quest for the Suttoni. He was the first to get word that one had been fished by a fisherman from Encontrados, Zulia, South Lake Maracaibo.
Cesar sent the pics to several parties including Shane and Wil at that time and they both sent them to me. Wil had asked me to not publish the pics as he had not yet been authorized by Cesar to do so. A few months later I got them from Shane. Larry also received the pics at that time and we posted some earlier thread on Finarama.
I am attaching hereto the pics of the young adult male that is/was kept at the Museum of Science Aquarium at LUZ. The person holding the fish is my friend, better said brother (and mentor) Edgar Wilfrido Cabezas, Aquatic Biologist. I feel Wil is the most knowledgeable and passionate person when it comes to this species, except for, maybe, Prof. Donald Taphorn, ex-professor of Ichthiosystematics at LUZ School of Biology until 1979-80 (now he teaches at the UNELLEZ – Ezequel Zamora University, Guanare). Prof. Taphorn is the person who took this picture and was Wil’s mentor many years back.
To finish up, I know your questions have not been answered.. Is the fish in the pic at the beginning of this thread suttoni or cochliodon, are both the same species or is this another species than that described by Schultz.
I am pretty sure your fish is from Lake Maracaibo and this fact by itself would take me to believe it is Suttoni. My own way of seeing the LMBEP has changed in the past few years and I am more open to follow along the logic of those who give more thought to the dilemma than I have. Though I would have said this is cochliodon two or three years ago, for sure it resembles the fish that Wil is holding and that fish is from lake Maarcaibo, we have no doubt.
I will send the pic to Wil and ask him what he thinks about it. I will also ask him if he can contact Dr. Taphorn and get his opinion. I will get back if I have any news.
Shane... Pretoria, South Africa? I see you keep moving around. Still with the Embassy?
Mr. Chavez is still asking about you? LOL
Regards,
Ed

Hi Ed,

Thank you for reponding to my email.

May I know what is your opinion on the part where I see that the head profile of my fish is much slender than the "P. suttonorum" in the cat elog and I can see a few rows of spikes by the side of the "P. suttonorum" (most other live specimen of P. suttonorum,ranges from 7 to 14 inches that I have seen here in Singapore has high head profile similar to LDA65 and with rows of obvious spikes by the side) but there are none on my specimen.

btw, Oliver had seen my photo and he ID it as P. suttonorum.

ben

Also, as I understand it, the allocation of the name P. suttoni (as it was then) to the blue eyed pl*co was made in general conversation by Isbrucker at the 1978 UK catfish convention in London and then it's use expanded via Sands COTW series. The point there is we can trace this ID to one single "call" in 1978. While from a leading expert, it may well have been wrong

This is correct Jools.

From article I wrote (available in Shane's World). I think it is worth quoting at length given that it documents the origins of the confusion.


"According to Lee Finley, the earliest he could document imports to the States was 1978. Lee has a Kodachrome slide in his possession, taken by Lee's early catfish mentor Ray Horn, which was shot at a U.S. fish show in August of 1978. The Blue-Eyed pleco most likely reached the U.K. around 1978 as well. The earliest reference I could locate in the British literature was a note by Gina Sandford thanking Colin Sykes for bringing, "the magnificent blue-eyed Panaque" to the 1978 Catfish Association of Great Britain"s annual show (Catfish Association of Great Britain, Magazine Number 18, April 1978). Baensch further notes that by 1983 several hundred blue-eye plecos were being imported to Germany every month.

According to David Sands (1984), "The name Panaque suttoni was given to a blue-eyed species by Dr. Isbrücker at the convention of the Catfish Association in 1978…" I can only assume that the fish mentioned above by Gina Sanford was the same fish seen by Dr. Isbrücker and misidentified as P. suttoni. For those not familiar with the genus, Dr. Isbrücker later corrected the name P. suttoni to P. suttonorum as the fish was named after "Dr. and Mrs. Frederick A Sutton, who very kind to me while I stayed at the camp of the Lago Petroleum Corporation in Maracaibo" (Schultz 1944). Under the rules of scientific nomenclature, a species named after more than one person, in this case Dr. and Mrs. Sutton, should end in "orum" making the correct scientific name P. suttonorum. Sands must have had some doubt as to Isbrücker"s identification as on p. 191 of the same book he captioned a photograph of the blue-eyed pleco "Panaque suttoni? Or Panaque gibbosus? The true identity of this species could remain doubtful for a long time. Although the name P. suttoni is becoming well accepted amongst catfish enthusiasts, names such as P. dentex or P. cochliodon should not be ruled out."

We may never know if Isbrücker flatly stated that the blue-eyed pleco was P. suttoni or if he just opined that it was a possible identification. In any case, Isbrücker's comments, widely published by Sands, are without a doubt the origin of the misuse of the name P. suttoni for the blue-eyed pleco. However, in that Isbrücker later amended the name to suttonorum in a revised edition of one of the Baensch Atlases, it has to be considered that, at least at that time, Isbrücker believed that the blue-eyed pleco was P. suttoni."

Sorry, I had to post the above without finishing my thought. I think it would be interesting to provide the original description to an artist and have him/her whip up a picture of what the fish should look like.

I think the logic to date has been... There is only one described large Panaque from the Maracaibo Basin... We are collecting a large Panaque... Therefore we are collecting the only described sp (P. suttonorum in this case).

For the above to be true we have to make two assumptions1) Schultz' original description is incorrect (since the two animals do not match) and 2) There is only one large Panaque in the Maracaibo Basin. Neither of these seem like logical assumptions to me.

At some point I think I need to change the Maracaibo blue eye to Panaque sp. cf. cochliodon "Maracaibo".

I think you may be onto something here Bro...

Ed,
Just left South Africa for good on Thursday after three years there. Next stop is Kampala, Uganda. I'll be there in August.
Yes, I am sure Hugo is still looking for me. May be a while before I get another cachapa.
-Shane

Ed Ruiz, aka puertoayacucho,
Thanks for adding your observations.
I meant to let you know that I had used the info you shared with me in my above post.
Been a little busy lately.

Anyway, a clearer side view of the fish and you can see it is now darken after a few days in the tank.

Ben,
Have you been following this thread?
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 89&start=0

-Shane

yes I did Shane.

somehow I can't really "match" my fish to "P. sutt" as most had suggested but it looks more to P. coch according to the pix in cat elog or in between.

but as you had mentioned "I do not have a copy of Galvis et al (Peces de Catatumbo) on hand, but something like 50% of the fish spp surveyed in the Catatumbo are also present in the Magdalena system. To me this large overlap between the two systems supports the possibility that the Panaque sp coming from the Catatumbo area is very likely the same sp exported from the Magdalena."

with reference to my fish, Do you think it is possible that it may not be a "P. sutt" ?

with reference to my fish, Do you think it is possible that it may not be a "P. sutt" ?

I can state with 100% certainty that your fish is not P. suttonorum. It looks nothing like the drawing below, which I put together based on Schultz' description of P. suttonorum. The more of these so-called "P. suttonorum" from eastern Colombia I see, the more convinced I am that P. cochliodon is found in both drainages.
-Shane

Opps.. sorry and perhaps I wasn't being clear.

Let say I name these so-called "P. suttonorum" as BES and a true P. cochliodon as BEC.

Fm a layman point of view and with some photos comparison, here are a few of my observations

BES
grey in color
high head profile - looks alittle like LDA65
large tail proportion as compared to BEC
even a young fish has distinctive rows of spikes by the side

The so called ""
**Image no longer in place**

BEC
typically darker to jet black in color
lower head profile
do not exhibit row of spikes by the side
a much smaller fish

.


Do you think my specimen is BES or BEC or something else ?

yes, with all the photos that I have come across so far, I am pretty convinced that these so-called "P. suttonorum" does not match Schultz' description.

I'm not sure about all those differences you list Ben between BES & BEC - I mean they only work for me if you are comparing fishes of the same size. The colour could be a gender or population thing too. Look at the L001 and L022 - same species but ones a bit blacker and ones a bit browner. Or look at the difference in black versus grey in L066 males and females. For me, they represent two populations of P. cochliodon. I should really update the catelog...

I think the real P. suttonurum hasn't been photographed since Schultz, but I think it would look a bit like this:



Jools

Jools, nice work with Photoshop.

Do you think that if P. suttonorum did look like that, then the white fin margins would be more obvious in the original photo?

Racoll,
I think it is hard to say. There is no telling for how long that fish was preserved before Schultz took a photo.

I think Jool's work shows the expected coloration of the fins well. Jools, can you add the other characteristics, especially the "window" in the caudal and white stripe? Also, I choose to go with a brown eye as Schultz never mentions blue eyes in his description. I would not think this a big deal if Schultz had described the fish from a preserved collection, but he did not. He personally collected most, if not all, of the fishes he described in Venezuela, so there is no reason he would not have noted blue eyes if P. suttonorum had them. Especially as this is a rather rare characteristic useful for identification.
-Shane

racoll wrote:Jools, nice work with Photoshop.

It's a pic of

Identification Oddly close to the description of Panaque suttonurum from the faraway Maracaibo basin in northwestern Venezuela, this species is from Brazil and is currently undescribed.

It's a pic of Hypostomus sp(l360)

Well, that accounts for why I was so impressed with Jools' handiwork.

Perhaps if someone with absolutely nothing better to do, fancies photoshopping a large Panaque to fit the description exactly, that would be pretty neat.

Jools