Whiptail Cat ID

[Feohw]

I bought this guy as a red whiptail. Clearly its not very red. I read an article on here about how red lizard whiptails are often bred with Rineloricaria lanceolata to produce red offspring. However the offspring end up turning brown with the markings of R. lanceolata. I'm wondering if this is what I ended up with? I've had it for around 4 months and its grown from about 1.5" (3.8cm) to 3" (7.6cm).
When I first got it:

Now:

Aaand the pics came in sideways...

[Feohw]

[bekateen]

Beautiful fish, whatever it is. I'm not familiar with all the Rineloricaria, but yours does at least superficially resemble

Rineloricaria lanceolata

.

Was your juvenile (at purchase) actually red? I see no basis to think it's a hybrid with the red whip. Compare your first photo to this. I think they look really similar.


Regards, Eric

[Feohw]

When I first got it it was kind of an orangey colour. It definitely looks like an R. lanceolata, the pattern seems just about right. It has always been much brighter than the lanceolata I've seen though. Especially when young. They have been quite dark from what I've seen.

So you think its a R. lanceolata? Whatever it is, its one of the most interesting catfish I've had!

[bekateen]

When I first got it it was kind of an orangey colour. It definitely looks like an R. lanceolata, the pattern seems just about right. It has always been much brighter than the lanceolata I've seen though. Especially when young. They have been quite dark from what I've seen.

So you think its a R. lanceolata? Whatever it is, its one of the most interesting catfish I've had!

I wouldn't pretend to know for sure what you have. I just think it looks really close to R. lanceolata now. I don't know how much variation there is among normal lanceolata, but the photos in the clog show some with a beautiful rich red-brown color (similar to your fish) and others I've seen are rather bland in their colors. The only whips I've kept are commons (eigenmanni) and those vary a lot, some yellow-tan and others grey.

Does your original source for this one still breed them? or at least have the parents? If so, ask for pics of their parents, and try to get more. If yours is a hybrid, I don't think you want to mix it with regular lanceolata, out of risk of hybridization. But to breed more of the same, nothing wrong with that.

Cheers, Eric

[bekateen]

Perhaps it's no surprise of not all lanceolata look the same. Read this from the CLOG page (here):

Several sources list this species distribution in South America as limited to the Upper Amazon River basin but this species has been recorded in many more locations, basically most of South America from the northern and upper Amazon Basin to Paraguay in the south. This is possibly because several similar species exist in this range.

• Amazon, Upper Amazon
• La Plata, Paraná, Paraguay, Upper Paraguay, Taquari (Paraguay)
• Amazon, Middle Amazon (Solimoes), Purus, Caeté (Acre)
• Amazon, Lower Amazon, Nhamundá

[Jools]

Yup, just to agree with the above, I'd label this as

Rineloricaria lanceolata

which as noted is a variable and widely distributed species.

Jools

[Feohw]

Cool. Thanks for the help!