PlanetCatfish.com

I've never seen them for sale in the US but ran across this http://aquafin.jp/blog/?p=12659. Since I've always favored Auchenipteridae and like lighter coloration on cats these guys immediately appealed to me. Info. on them is far and few between so I was hoping to ask for some help here. There seems to be two cf's. Based on what I've read here it seems that the those found in the Rio Tocantins seem to have typical Auchenipteridae coloration with the cat being dark brown to black. While those found in the Rio Xingu seem to be a lighter brown even golden color. How ever despite the two colorations depicted the map on here only show the location for the Rio Tocantins.

Now I'm asking because I have a vendor who has always tried his best to get me what I request. I was hoping to tell him a more exact locale to see how feasible it would be or not be for him to be able to source these guys for me. So any assistance in narrowing down where in the Rio Xingu these guys might be found would be greatly appreciated or if possible I'd appreciate a potential vendor for these guys. Thanks in advance and for those who don't visit the link here are some pics taken from there of these stunning cats.

Where did you find that these are (also) from Rio Xingu? Afaik, they're only known from Rio Tocantins - hence the genus name.

Wrt the light colouration, pls bear in mind that many freshly wildcaught species show a yellowish glow, which sadly almost always wears off after some time in captivity/the aquarium. I suppose this is caused by the fact that our water/environment lacks "something" (wish I knew what!), causing the yellow to fade and thus most of the fishes show a less lively colouration.

This is a nice example wrt the above from a well known auchenipterid we usually encounter as a black and white species: http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/ima ... ge_id=2984

Marc van Arc wrote:Where did you find that these are (also) from Rio Xingu? Afaik, they're only known from Rio Tocantins - hence the genus name.

Wrt the light colouration, pls bear in mind that many freshly wildcaught species show a yellowish glow, which sadly almost always wears off after some time in captivity/the aquarium. I suppose this is caused by the fact that our water/environment lacks "something" (wish I knew what!), causing the yellow to fade and thus most of the fishes show a less lively colouration.

This is a nice example wrt the above from a well known auchenipterid we usually encounter as a black and white species: http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/ima ... ge_id=2984

Thanks for the response and my apologies for making it sound like I read that they come from Rio Xingu. Just that the species page here on planetcatfish for T. Piresi has a pic provided by ©Mark Sabaj Pérez with a Piresi that's is captioned Rio Xingu. Since it appeared to be a pic of wild caught individual I assumed the Rio Xingu was designating the body of water behind the Piresi in which it was caught. The Piresi in the pic has the coloration similar to the one I provided where the other pics show typical dark Auchenipteridae coloration. An assumption of mine was it was a regional variant cf of Piresi from Rio Xingu and I should've more carefully worded my post so that it was clear it was exactly that my assumption.

I didn't know that light coloration was present often in many wild caught specimens. I know that fish respond differently to stress some darken some lighten but didn't know it was common for Auchenipteridae to come in with a yellowish glow. I did experience gulpers going golden though once. My friend and I ordered some gulpers from the same vendor and they where delivered to my house. We split the group which where all typical gulper coloration and within a day he had called me excited because they had gone golden hoping he got some new cf. Having experience with gulpers and never hearing of this coloration change I assumed it was stress due to poor water quality. I rushed over to see if I could help but upon testing his water all parameters seemed fine. How ever the gulper where obviously in distress as they where breathing heavily at the surface. It was his first attempt at keeping fish and though I walked him through cycling the tank he had cleaned the tank with a cleaner for reptiles before cycling. I tried everything to save them I even stayed over night but by the morning they where gone. Till this day I don't know what killed his gulpers. Was it the reptile tank cleaner or some other trace metal, mineral or other toxin that our standard kit doesn't test for that was in his water I can't say? It was just a tragedy because he was so disappointed he never tried keeping fish again.

Ah well, if it's true that this particular 9 inch Peresi is just exhibiting the typical glow you said Auchenipteridae get I'm extremely saddened. They have such cute faces that get obscured by the dark coloration and I'd love to have a light colored Auchenipteridae. Here's a pic though of a long term captive Trachy that started out gold and turned black then finally became pied.

Marc van Arc wrote:Afaik, they're only known from Rio Tocantins - hence the genus name.

Actually the species was described from the upper Tapajós river, but it is also known from the Tocantins and Xingu drainages. See http://www.gbif.org/species/2344755 for known records.

I've seen that website before, they've got lots of really cool auchenipterids