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I bought 5 of these in 2015 as maculatus and by all accounts that is what I think/ thought they were, but they are now over 8" so am not sure. Any ideas?

Hi, about the size of Pimelodus maculatus I have found this information:


"P. maculatus females have a higher average length
than males (Barbosa et al., 1988; Basile-Martins et al., 1986; Braga, 2000; Fenerich et al.,
1975); the largest recorded length is 44 cm for females and 38 cm for males (Barbosa et al.,
1988)."
http://www.ablimno.org.br/boletins/pdf/ ... 2-3%29.pdf

They are talking about total length.
But I don't think your fish is P. maculatus, as to external morphology in this article:

https://repositorio.unesp.br/bitstream/ ... sequence=1

the author says that P. maculatus has less than five sets of maculae along the body, (usualy three), and this maculae are larger in diameter than the eye diameter. In the head there is no maculae, hyaline fins (or with sparse and discrete maculae).

Unfortunately there is no pictures of a live specimen in the article.

I have found this picture in website from an institute that works in the preservation and reproduction of P. maculatus There is also this video from a local TV
http://redeglobo.globo.com/sp/eptv/terr ... s/2901808/

Sorry I couldn't help you more

Wonderful reply and a great video. Thank you so much. I too thought maculatus should retain their attractive spotting into adulthood but I don't know enough.

That's great detective work for sure. They certain started out like maculatus but certainly don't look like the fish in the video, although I had not realized just how many pim are undocumented.

Anyone else with in depth knowledge of the Pimelodus genus?

Interesting coincidence. Another pair of Pimelodus are up for an ID and one of them I've never seen before: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=46207&p=311436#p311436