Pleco of salto, Uruguay

[Oscar]

Hi,

One friend captured this probably Hypostomus, in Salto, Uruguay, but we don't have any idea about this correct id.





Thanks and regards

[Mod edit: Add image tags --Mats]

[Bristlenose 94]

Reminds me of Pogonopoma obscurum. great looking fish no matter what.

[Borbi]

Hi,

I would more tend to Rhinelepis strigosa. With Pogonopoma, the fins should be larger than they appear in the pictures.

Cheers, Sandor

[RickE]

Hi,

I would more tend to Rhinelepis strigosa. With Pogonopoma, the fins should be larger than they appear in the pictures.

Cheers, Sandor

Certainly looks like the fellah from the cat-e-log pic. Wonderfully prehistoric!

[MatsP]

Looking at the Cat-eLog of

Pogonopoma obscurum

, it looks to have similar size fins to the fish in the above picture, and the bony scutes do not look like Rhinelepis. I'm not at all certain, tho'.

--
Mats

[nvcichlids]

I want some for my large tank!

[Bas Pels]

Looking at the hand on the first picture I think the fish is much larger than the measures the Cat e log gives for the said Pogonopoma. I would guess over 30 cm of fish outside the hand - and perhaps some inside it, apart from the tail fin - asuming the thumb to be 6 cm (from the joint to the top), which is not overly large

[Suckermouth]

Hmmm, I don't know much about these fish but I'm checking the literature.

P. obscurum has 8-11 dorsal fin rays while the other Rhinelepini species have only 7. Interestingly, I'm only seeing 7 on the fish pictured. The scientific literature doesn't mention any other Rhinelepini species inhabiting the Rio Uruguai except P. obscurum. By elimination (P. wertheimeri has an adipose fin, not present in the other Rhinelepini) and if it's actually Pogonpoma, that leaves P. parahybae, but P. parahybae, which has 7 dorsal fin rays and no adipose fin, but its distribution is Rio Paraiba do Sul.

The underside picture makes it look a lot more like a Rhinelepis (wider body, huge gill slits), but none are known from the Rio Uruguai. However, it has been hypothesized that Rhinelepis have been introduced to places, so this is not impossible.

[MatsP]

Rhinelepis strigosa

has a distribution of Uruguay river drainage - are you saying this is incorrect (judging by the look of it, it probably originates from Fishbase).

--
Mats

[Suckermouth]

The only papers I looked at were Armbruster 1998 and Quevedo 2002, neither which say Rhinelepis is found there. I found FishBase's info is from CLOFFSCA, which does say that R. strigosa is in Uruguay. I do not know where CLOFFSCA got that info though. Nonetheless, given that information, R. strigosa is probably the best choice.

[Bas Pels]

One of the writers of CLOFFSCA, Kullander, has been to Uruguay quite often

Perhaps he had a similar experience once? I'm just suggesting

[MatsP]

Whilst Sven Kullander was "chief editor" or some such, I'm pretty sure the section about Loricariidae was did not get much input from Sven - he's more of a Cichlid man, afaik. There is a list of references for each species at the back of each section of the book. I'm not sure who was doing the particular section for Rhinelepis - I'm at work, my CLOFFSCA is not here...

--
Mats

[The.Dark.One]

C. Weber did the Rhinelepis work in CLOFFSCA

[Oscar]

Then, Rhinelepis strigosa is the best choice?

[Mike_Noren]

GBIF lists a Pogonopoma obscurum collected 1989 by Lucena in a Brazilian tributary of Rio Uruguay.
I don't know if this link will work, but... http://www.gbif.se/occurrence/27443115

[MatsP]

GBIF lists a Pogonopoma obscurum collected 1989 by Lucena in a Brazilian tributary of Rio Uruguay.
I don't know if this link will work, but... http://www.gbif.se/occurrence/27443115

Yes, but if you haven't used the web-site before, you need to click on "Godkänn" at the bottom of the page that first comes up before you see the data arriving (you are then agreeing with the terms and conditions of the site - which is essentially that you won't copy the content without saying you did so).

--
Mats

[Bas Pels]

I just realized it is not that strange a fish from southern Brasil finds its way to Uruguay

I'm not intending to state to obvious: Brasil and Uruguay share borders, and the Rio Uruguay goes from Brasil to Uruguay, but there is more:

The southern Brasil / Uruguay area has had terrible floads this summer, the worst in over 50 years. If you are intersted, google 'inundación' and 'salto' for instance. Over 16.000 people were evacuated in December in Uruguay alone, and fload tends to take fishes along

Fishes which will have a good change to survive in summer - but winter might give problems