Microsynodontis sp. Malebo Pool

[Stan, posts: 25]

I tried to take some pics of them, as I promised. Here are the only two, where you can see something... Hope, I'm in the right section here.

[Silurus]

I always thought these were Microsynodontis polli.

[Jools]

I have the same species, and thought of them as that name too.

Jools

[The.Dark.One, posts: 1438]

I always thought these were Microsynodontis polli.

Me too

[MatsP]

Our Distribution/Occurrence data here seem to indicate that they are in the Niger river, and this matches both Fishbase and CoF.

However, looking at Fishbase's occurrence records, it shows a record of fish collected by Boulenger in "Stanley Pool", (now called Malebo Pool), and these are identified by none other than Ng, H.H (Which means Silurus). Another occurrence is "Kinsuka, rapides à la sortie du Pool" [also identified by HH], and one is "Ndjili Kongo-Ubangui" [again, id by HH].

So I'm going to add "Malebo Pool" to the occurrences of this species. If there is objection to this, I'll just remove it again.

--
Mats

[Stan, posts: 25]

oh, ok. So it's a polly. I got them only 1,5 weeks ago and they seemed not to match to polly, as they have no vertical stripes. Thanks for ID!

[rommer, posts: 24]

My microsynodontissen where also identified as polly. They look all different. I will try to get some pics to show them..

[Birger]

oh, ok. So it's a polly. I got them only 1,5 weeks ago and they seemed not to match to polly, as they have no vertical stripes.

If you look at the pics of a juvenile it does have the same spotted pattern as yours...may be as simple as yours still need to mature...yours look to be still fairly small.

Not all species are described (all those described are from the Lower Guinean Bioregion) if you had to pick a described species that would be it. That said I would think one found in the Niger and one collected from the Malebo pool could very well be "different" but similar looking fish. There is still much to learn about these fish and it is not even certain how many species and how far they occur into the Congo Drainage.

Birger