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Here's a fairly uninspiring picture I took of a lake in Venezuela, March 2002.



Jools

The photo is of the Lake that was formed outside of Calabozo, Guarico State when the Rio Guarico was dammed (damned). Can't remember its name and all the maps I have on hand are so old that they do not show the lake. On the very interesting side... that photo is of the (nearly) exact place the holotype of Panaque nigrolineatus was found.
-Shane

If you stare at it for 20 secods and blur your eyes, you can see a dolphin and a Yin and Yang sign!

man i want a boat...

looks a lot like Tonle Sap Lake, (flooded season) its not but i thought it well worth mentioning.
i've wasted 20 seconds of my life and still cant see any dolphins, did you get carried away with all that beer talk!

Im just waiting for someone to photoshop it, hehe, guess ive been on too many gaming forums

How clear is the water in the lake? I always thought it would be cool to go scuba diving in the Amazon region to see the plecos in their native habitat (and maybe bring home a few small ones )

Most tropical waters are either terribly turbid or blackwater. In either case, you can barely see your hand in front of you.

kinda like the gulf of mexico?

Sorry, but what is "turbid"?

Turbid=sediment-laden. What one would call a whitewater (as opposed to clearwater) habitat.

I prefer the Panaque nigrolineatus of the Xingu river in Brasil (or from Araguaia, in Brasil too). They are very beautiful, I think more than the venezuelan ones.
Sincerely,
Paulo

ClayT101 wrote:How clear is the water in the lake? I always thought it would be cool to go scuba diving in the Amazon region to see the pl*cos in their native habitat (and maybe bring home a few small ones )

I take it you have seen the underwater pictures of plecos in the cat-elog?

Jools

Yes, I saw the pics. I assumed those were taken at night. I guess not

Shane wrote:The photo is of the Lake that was formed outside of Calabozo, Guarico State when the Rio Guarico was dammed (damned). Can't remember its name and all the maps I have on hand are so old that they do not show the lake. On the very interesting side... that photo is of the (nearly) exact place the holotype of Panaque nigrolineatus was found.
-Shane

So, was the holotype caught before the Rio Guarico was dammed or during the lifetime of this lake? I always thought that Royals lived in fast flowing streams and rivers not big open lakes such as these.

Do they still have the Royals in the lake now? By the way, question for the experts that have been or are usually in South America: What size are the biggest royals that you have seen in the wild?

Regards,
Mike D.

So, was the holotype caught before the Rio Guarico was dammed or during the lifetime of this lake?

The fish was described in 1877, and the dam built in the 1950s. Definitely before the damming.

The lake is the Embalse de Guarico, and as HH pointed out, the dam was built way after the fish was described. I have never found Panaque in fast flowing streams. They seem to prefer large rivers and hang out in and around snags of driftwood. They can live just fine in a lake like this as well. I have never seen one over 12-14 inches TL. Mind you at this size they have some pretty serious girth and look like little footballs with tails.
-Shane

I'm sorry about that. That is what I had meant about the fast flowing streams, driftwood snags with a lot of current runing through it. But, thanks for the information. Very interesting.

Will we ever see one that is a meter in length, perhaps? Do or can they exist?

Regards,
Mike D.

Mike,
I do not think any members of the genus get that large. The two largest spp. I am aware of are Acanthicus and the undescribed giant loricariid found in the Venezuelan llanos (L 193 in Datz not Aqualog). Jools and I spent the better part of a day swimming in the Rio Orituco try to catch one without any luck. They live only in the middle of rivers and stay in the bottom among large stones.
-Shane