Small change to the description of P. suttonoroum

[Mike_Noren]

I feel it could be made more obvious in the description of

Panaque suttonorum

that when Schultz talks about it having "basal two-thirds of the paired fins black, and the tips of these fins white; the posterior margin of dorsal is white, a narrow white bar across caudal peduncle, middle of caudal fin white then some black blotches; the tips of the rays are white" he was specifically talking about a 30 mm juvenile. He makes clear, both in the text and in the key, that the adults are "uniformly grayish".

[Shane]

Mike,
Let me dig out the paper in question and take a hard look at it. My interpretation was that these two descriptions are not contrary.

"basal two-thirds of the paired fins black, and the tips of these fins white; the posterior margin of dorsal is white, a narrow white bar across caudal peduncle, middle of caudal fin white then some black blotches; the tips of the rays are white"

This is the description of the fins

"uniformly grayish".

This is the description of the body.

The real problem, to my mind, is that no fish even remotely matching Schultz' description has ever been encountered in the Maracaibo Basin since. I think it quite possible, given that we are talking about a 30mm individual, that P. suttonorum is a description of a juvenile P. cochliodon... making P. suttonorum a junior synonym.

-Shane

[Mike_Noren]

The holotype is a 280 mm individual from the Rio Negro, "below the mouth of Rio Yasa". There are 5 paratypes, ranging from 31 mm to 265 mm, one from the same locality and four from Rio Motatán.

Description of coloration: "Uniformly grayish; peritoneum dusky. My 31-mm specimen has the basal two thirds of the paired fins black, and the tipse of these fins white; the posterior margin of dorsal is white, a narrow white bar across caudal peduncle, middle of caudal fin white then some black blotches; the tips of the rays are white."

Schultz states that "This new species is closely related to Panaque gibbosus (Steindachner) (= Panaque cochliodon /Mike) but differs in having a more robust body." He goes on to give some meristic differences which to my non-expert eyes don't seem very convincing given the small sample size.

EDIT: the photo in the cat-elog shows the holotype. The Rio Negro talked about here is a river in the Maracaibo basin. AFAI can see all listed meristic differences to cochliodon overlap with the measurements of cochliodon (taken from just one individual).

[MatsP]

I presume that is NOT the Rio Negro that flows into the Amazon opposite Manaus in Brazil... ??

--
Mats

[Jools]

I presume that is NOT the Rio Negro that flows into the Amazon opposite Manaus in Brazil... ??

Correct.

Jools

[Jools]

I've re-read it and I agree with Mike that the white on the fins things is a description appeartaining to the 31mm specimen. However, I disagree that it is clear, it is easy to misconstrue the rather clunky piece of English.

Thinking about it, I can't say I've ever seen a blue eye that small - we are talking not much bigger than an inch here.

Jools

[Shane]

It is certainly not the clearest description as he is not specific as to if he is only describing juvenile coloration, which is likely the case. Many of the characteristics he notes are common to young Panaque of other spp and disappear as the fish matures. The only other book that covers this sp (Galvis et al) offers no further clarification but even they hint that it is a junior synonym of P. cochliodon.

"Schultz admite que esta especie es muy similar a P. gibbosus del Magdalena."

The photo presented in Galvis is, to my eye, clearly P. cochliodon. There is no additional information about the photo, so it could be a photo snapped in a Bogota fish exporter for all we know.

-Shane