PlanetCatfish.com

Hi there,

A local LFS has some fish on their stocklist labelled as M. batesii but staff there are not sure whether they are batesii or polli. Would anyone be able to tell from this (poor) photograph the shop sent me?

I am interested in batesii only for my Cameroon tank.

Any help much appreciated. Thanks,

Andre

Microsynodontis polli.

Thanks for your feedback. Regards, Andre

I have a horrible feeling that two M. batesii I bought earlier from another store and have already introduced into my tank might well be M. polli as well...









What do you think??

Looks like M. polli also.

If you continue keeping these or you find batesii somewhere, I suggest you get a group of 6-10 these.

Thanks again Jippo. What a nuisance as all the other fish I have in there are from Cameroon. I am trying to buy more batesii to create a group of about ten of them but every time I think I have found a shop that say they have them, their batesiis turn out to be pollis upon further investigation! I just cancelled an order from yet another supplier for the same reason.

When I do find some, will it be OK to add a group of batesii to the two M. pollis I already have in my tank? The tank is full of driftwood with ferns so I dont think its likely I will be able to catch the pollis.

killi69 wrote:all the other fish I have in there are from Cameroon

Even the Microctenopoma ansorgii?

According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species they can be found in Angola, Cameroon, Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo;
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/summary/181678/0

It will be a matter of luck to find M.batesii all advertised always are M. polli...batesii would be a nice find though.

Birger

Could these be the real article?? M. batesii currently listed in a Dutch LFS. Can you guys tell if they really are batesii??

Without a doubt...they all look to be

Currently along with M. polli the most common Microsynodontis right now.

Still a great fish and good practice for when you do find what you are after.

Birger

Hi there,

Thanks for your feedback so far. I am still trying hard to track down some M. batesii but no luck so far. Would anyone know of a supplier who might be able to source some?? I am based in UK but travel regularly to Holland so am looking for a supplier in either country or one willing to post to either the UK or Holland.

Many thanks for your help. Regards,
Andre

Neil at Pier aquatics had a contact in Cameroon & it may be worth checking

Many thanks for the contact! Much appreciated. I will give him a call. Regards, Andre

Hi guys,

I keep on trying; is this another polli??? Someone bought them in for me as a batesii...


Many thanks! Regards,
Andre

killi69 wrote:is this another polli???

Yup

How frustrating.

Thank you for the feedback Silurus.

Steve at Tropical Waters in Birmingham had some microsynodontis in recently that weren't polli but might have been sp.1 (imported as Batesi)

Thanks Richard for keeping up with the suggestions. Neil at Pier Aquatics was very helpful but as you can see from the above, the fish he got sent turned out to be pollis after all.

I will chase up your Birmingham contact and let you know the outcome.

Thanks again,

Andre

Just called Tropical Waters in Birmingham but they have all sold out. Steve is out of the country until then end of the month and will follow up with them then to see if there is anything they can do.

In the meantime, the search goes on - please anyone with contacts or ideas of how i can obtain genuine M Batesiis, please do get in touch. Including our friends in the Netherlands, as I do go over there regularly and could pick up from there also.

Thanks again for your help, much appreciated,

Yes Steve is out collecting in Columbia at the moment but he has worked out in Africa & has contacts so we'll have to see what happens

Cheers Richard. I will contact Steve next month and keep you updated.

In the meantime, if anyone has any other suggestions, please do get in touch.

Thank you all, regards,

Andre

Hi there,

Another pic from another supplier, with the same question from me; could this be M. batesii?? At first glace, it looks to me like M sp.1 but I hope I might be wrong!

Please let me know. Your expert advice is much appreciated, as always.

Thank you in advance,regards,

Andre

Not batesii. You're right about it being .

Hi Silurus,

Thank you for the prompt response, much appreciated.

One day I will post a batesii pic here!

Thanks again, regards,

Andre

One supplier is currently selling this as Microsynodontis Cameroon / M batesii. If the fish is really sourced from Cameroon then it ought to be batesii...



Could this be the one??

killi69 wrote:One supplier is currently selling this as Microsynodontis Cameroon / M batesii. If the fish is really sourced from Cameroon then it ought to be batesii...

Could this be the one??

Hi Andre,

I'm no expert on synos of any kind, let alone microsynos. But now that you've posted this I've gone back and looked at all the other posts in this thread, and I've examined the CLOG photos of batesii and sp(1). If I'm right, then this is also sp(1), not batesii. Here's why I say that:

When I compare all the photos of sp(1), what I see in common is the coloration of the tail. Specifically, the tail appears to have what you could interpret/describe either as a single broad vertical band (roughly in the middle of the tail) that gets broken into an upper half and a lower half, or as two large pigmented arcing spots, one in the upper half of the tail and the other below it. Besides this feature, there is also a very thin faint pigmented vertical line posterior to this. The tail is also gently forked with very round tail tips.

By contrast, when I compare all the photos of batesii, I see 3 to 4 thin vertical stripes (all of about the same thickness) passing through the tail, and in the photos on PlanetCatfish, I see no visible tail fork at all. The drawing clearly shows a rounded unforked tail.

Now I look at the photo above. The tail in the photo shows a single broad vertical stripe broken in the center. The tail is slightly damaged so it's difficult for me to say there is or is not a fork. But based on the broad vertical stripe, I would suspect this is sp(1), not batesii.

I can tell that you've been searching earnestly for a while. So for your sake, I hope I'm wrong.

Cheers, Eric

P.S. Also, if this analysis is correct, then maybe it will help you in the future to confidently confirm species ID when you find fish for sale in stores or on-line, so you can avoid bringing home the wrong fish, and avoid passing on the right one.

Thank Eric for your detailed reply. Youre probably right. I was looking at the pictures of batesii on Scotcat http://www.scotcat.com/mochokidae/m_batesii6.htm and thought they looked similar but I was being too hopeful I guess!
Thanks again. Regards, Andre

Hi Andre,
I just looked at Scotcat, and I see what you mean: Several of their photos show fish labeled as batesii which have only 2 tail stripes, not 3 or 4. And the more anterior stripe is slightly... ever so slightly... wider than the posterior stripe. But even so, the two stripes are at least close to the same width, therefore I would think that the photos on Scotcat still don't resemble sp(1). Also, I don't see a definitive tail fork in any of the fish pictured on Scotcat, therefore again, the Scotcat photos don't look like sp(1). I think we need some help from the people who know Microsynos on this.
Cheers, Eric

Cheers Eric! Much appreciated. I find it difficult to tell them apart. Might it be possible that they are wrongly identified on Scotcat also? It would be so much easier if suppliers we able to be more precise about where the fish came from. If it really comes from Cameroon it should be batesii.
Regards,
Andre