Rineloricaria eigenmanni or parva?
Posted: 09 Jul 2019, 23:07
Following only two months after this thread (Self-restraint failed ), self-restraint failed again. This isn't my summer for restraint.
I was at a store with a tank full of common whiptails, all about 85-100mm SL. Super cheap. They had eight; I bought the largest six. Couldn't resist.
I expect they are or . They are pretty healthy looking, but don't have really full bellies, so I couldn't sex them based on condition. I tried to rely on snout shape, if that's even a thing in these (LOL, with nothing else to go by, I prayed that more pointy snout and more rounded snout = different sexes).
Getting them home, I noticed the pointy snouted fish were more contrasting in color (darker bands and saddles) than the rounder-snouted fish. I also noticed something else different about them, regarding the armor plates on the anterio-dorsal surface of the fish. Fish which had pointier noses have a different pattern of plates on the dorsum, between the base of the head and the origin of the dorsal spine (see drawing). What do you make of this? Do I have two species? Or is this a random individual variation? Growth stage? Sexual dimorphism? Been trying to track down this info on Google scholar, but not finding exactly what I need.
Cheers, Eric
I was at a store with a tank full of common whiptails, all about 85-100mm SL. Super cheap. They had eight; I bought the largest six. Couldn't resist.
I expect they are or . They are pretty healthy looking, but don't have really full bellies, so I couldn't sex them based on condition. I tried to rely on snout shape, if that's even a thing in these (LOL, with nothing else to go by, I prayed that more pointy snout and more rounded snout = different sexes).
Getting them home, I noticed the pointy snouted fish were more contrasting in color (darker bands and saddles) than the rounder-snouted fish. I also noticed something else different about them, regarding the armor plates on the anterio-dorsal surface of the fish. Fish which had pointier noses have a different pattern of plates on the dorsum, between the base of the head and the origin of the dorsal spine (see drawing). What do you make of this? Do I have two species? Or is this a random individual variation? Growth stage? Sexual dimorphism? Been trying to track down this info on Google scholar, but not finding exactly what I need.
Cheers, Eric