Curious About Synodontis Victoriae

[unblinded]

I have been curious about Synodontis victoriae for a few years. Perhaps some of you guys can satiate my curiosities. First, has anyone ever seen these available for sale. Second, I wonder if there is more than one species in Lake Victoria. My reason for this wonderment is that the picture in the Cat-e-log and the picture in Warren Burgess' catfish atlas seem to be the same fish (kind of elongate fish with many small spots). However, the fish on scotcat and fishbase.org listed as victorae seem to be a different fish (a stubby fish with fewer spots). Can someone that owns Seegers' Catfishes of Africa tell me what fish he shows to be victoriae? Thoughts, anyone?

[Richard B]

Seegers shows a scotcat type fish.

I have seen fish labelled victoriae offered in the uk but not for 20 years & cannot remember exactly what they looked like as they were pretty drab & they weren't something I was interested in back then.

Aqualog follows scotcat (so to speak) but that's not to say the ID is correct.

[Birger]

The only real difference I see (besides being thinner as compared to stout)is in the shape of the humeral process...which could be a maturity thing as it is in many other species. The humeral should have the slightly concave upper margin as in the one in the Cat-eLog. Other tell tale points are the longer upper lobe in the caudal, granular head cap, fringe on the mandibular barbels.
The spotting pattern could have lots of variation IMO.

(a stubby fish with fewer spots). Can someone that owns Seegers' Catfishes of Africa tell me what fish he shows to be victoriae?

Seegers shows a stubby fish(with fewer spots) with a humeral with the slightly concave upper margin and the drawing from Boulenger(1911) that shows many smaller spots.



These could possibly be confused with Synodontis frontosa by some as has happened in the past.

Birger

[unblinded]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm gonna have to break down and buy Seegers' book. The German edition has tempted me a few times b/c it's almost half the price. However I keep coming back to the fact that Jools says the technical German doesn't translate via google translator. Too bad it's not in Spanish like one of his other books.

[Dave Rinaldo]

From Seegers.
I couldn't get a good scan.

Better scan of pic.

[unblinded]

Thanks so much, Dave. I'm gonna have to buy that book and my wife's gonna kill me. That one page from the book is just a bit more temptation.