Aluminum catfish help needed ASAP!!!

[jippo]

I have three specimens of C. cf. nigrodigitatus but those are mature, two female and one male.

Jippo...I am wondering what the size of your mature specimens are.

Females are over 30cm(still growing) and male about 20cm. Male looks quite much different comparing to females. At first I got only that one male and after few months I got these two females. At the beginning all three looked quite much the same but after few months male looked like totally different species. Its head became a lot larger than females but it didn't grew up lenght no more so it looks very funny with a massive head. And I really think they could be mouthbrooders because male has a very large "bag" in its mouth. Here is some photos of females, male is always at some cave so it is impossible to photo.
http://picasaweb.google.fi/jippo76/Monn ... 0733189314

[Bristlenose 94]

very nice fish Jippo... have you checked the books?

[racoll]

Hopefully ill get some info today... Should i call them again or would that be rude?

Keep calling until they get so sick of you phoning, that they find out the information!

They'll probably just fob you off with "dunno, it came from a wholesaler". If they do this, get them to ring the wholesaler, or better still, ring the wholesaler yourself!

[Bristlenose 94]

ill call them tomorrow. theyre closed for the night...

[Bristlenose 94]

I've been talking to Allan James.... he said this looks like C. polli as well.

[racoll]

To confuse matters further, a fish very similar to this one is pictured as

Chrysichthys thonneri

in an article by Dr Micheal Hardman (the Chrysichthys expert mentioned earlier) in this month's PFK.

From what I can see, Bristlenose 94's fish may the same as what is pictured in Seegars (2008) as C. polli, on PlanetCatfish as C. brevibarbis, and in Hardman's PFK article as C. thonneri.

And this is of course not even mentioning C. auratus.

[Bristlenose 94]

Gah, this genus is so confusing! as soon as we get a proper i.d. on this fish im submitting pics to every fish database i can find...

To confuse matters further, a fish very similar to this one is pictured as

Chrysichthys thonneri

in an article by Dr Micheal Hardman (the Chrysichthys expert mentioned earlier) in this month's PFK.

From what I can see, Bristlenose 94's fish may the same as what is pictured in Seegars (2008) as C. polli, on PlanetCatfish as C. brevibarbis, and in Hardman's PFK article as C. thonneri.

And this is of course not even mentioning C. auratus.

[racoll]

as soon as we get a proper i.d. on this fish im submitting pics to every fish database i can find

Unfortunately I don't think this will happen soon.

It is not possible to tell if the fish is a juvenile of one species, or a adult of another. They are all so alike. This makes identification rather tricky.

If you get really good locality data (i.e. the river it came from), plus keep the fish for several years to see how it changes, you might be in luck, but until then its just educated guesswork I'm afraid.

We might be able to say it's likely to be Chrysichthys x, but unless you are 100% sure, putting photos on databases will only add to the confusion in future.

From what I can see, Bristlenose 94's fish may the same as what is pictured in Seegars (2008) as C. polli, on PlanetCatfish as C. brevibarbis, and in Hardman's PFK article as C. thonneri.

The more I look at the images, I'm not even sure myself anymore about this statement. Looking at mouth shape, your fish appears to have an inferior mouth, like C. auratus. The fish presented in Seegars (2008) as C. polli, and the fish called C. brevibarbis on PC, I still think are the same, and these seem to have a sub-terminal mouth. The C. thonneri in PFK appears to have a terminal mouth, which seems to be correct for this species.

Whether the mouth position changes during ontogeny remains to be seen ...

[Bristlenose 94]

The fish is 2", so i dont think its an adult.....
If what you say is true, and i believe it is, then i will keep you guys updated monthly. I think it would be fair to say that if this fish stops growing at about 4", it is C. Polli?
Either way..... I will save all these pics of him and, as ive said, keep you updated.

[MatsP]

If what you say is true, and i believe it is, then i will keep you guys updated monthly. I think it would be fair to say that if this fish stops growing at about 4", it is C. Polli?

No, it's not that simple. If you look at

Pangasianodon hypophthalmus

, it grows fairly big. You would think a 13-year old fish would be close to it's mature size, wouldn't you? Well, yesterday I saw two of these at around 15"/38cm. They had been kept for 13 years in a 4ft tank. So old fish "not large" doesn't identify it's species when kept in captivity.

--
Mats

[Bristlenose 94]

Alright then. I guess ill just provid you guys with updates.