Long/flat nosed F.vittata?

[L number Banana]

Found this little dude in a tank with regular F.vittata. Markings look somewhat the same but seem kind of boxy like snake scales and his nose is MUCH longer and thinner compared to my others. Also his nose is VERY flat, while the others are rounded. He has two rows of belly scutes like F.vittata.

Sorry for the fuzzy pics but his appearance at the front of the glass caught me off-guard with nothing to steady the camera. The other nose on the zucchini is F. mariaelenae and as you can see, the new guy has a much longer nose but is tiny compared to the F.mariaelenae. Compare the tail/body sizes at the bottom of the zucchini.

Can he just be a weirdo (or 'unique looking' ) F.vittata? A Pinocchio version?

Again, sorry for the fuzzy pics!
Two twigs, skinny nose and thick F.mariaelenae's nose beside.

New twig with flat nose and F.mariaelenae tail.

Nose detail


Thanks!

[Martin S]

Closest I could find is either

Farlowella amazonum

or

Farlowella hahni

. Interesting find - hope you find an ID, now the problem will be finding more of them
Martin

[L number Banana]

Closest I could find is either Farlowella amazonum or Farlowella hahni. Interesting find - hope you find an ID,
Martin

Thanks Martin, I looked at them all but couldn't really make up my mind as none of them really match perfectly. I think we can Rule out F.hahni because mine only has 2 rows of plates.

I looked at F. amazonum but that one seems to have a nose that's somewhat rounded or a little bulbous on the tip, mine is quite squared off and maybe flatter but then again, he's so small, maybe he has to grow his features a bit more?

This one,

Farlowella platorynchus

, has the right nose shape I think but is obviously not so common and

Farlowella cf_vittata

notes that "the nose appears too long" - but doesn't say anything about it being really flat.

There was several newly described ones that may turn out to be 'common' but I haven't looked those up yet.

now the problem will be finding more of them

I had to stand on my tip-toes to even look into the tank where I found this one - I hope there wasn't more there and it's three hours away so I won't be checking it again for a while
Anyone going to Ottawa via the 401 anytime??

Anyone else have any idea what this little guy might be? Should I take it that's it's not just an oddball F.vittata and ask to move the thread to What's my Catfish?

[L number Banana]

Just got another somewhat clear pic showing my yellow-on-top F.vittata on the right and the UFO (Unidentified Fishy Object) on the left.

[L number Banana]

Oh dear, Look at all the twigs!
http://www.c-u-w.net/fische/farlowella.htm
I found some of them pictured but am not very good at reading the scientific descriptions and checking the sizes with a live fish!
Looks a bit like F.henriquei Maybe someone out there has one?...help...

Mods: Do you think this might get a bit more info if it was moved to What is my Catfish forum?
Thanks

[racoll]

This one, Farlowella platorynchus, has the right nose shape I think but is obviously not so common

Actually it is quite common, not nearly as common as F. vittata, but I have seen it in Peruvian shipments. The rostrum does look a bit long for that species though.

Do you have Retzer & Page 1997? This revision of Farlowella, although quite technical, is probably your best chance of IDing it.

PM me your email address, and I can send it.

There are also some photos in Wels Atlas I of the various species in the trade, although it will be a lot easier to use the photos with the real fish in front of you!

[L number Banana]

Hi racoll,
Just reading some very descriptive goodies I found on a link you suggested on another thread: http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/
I'm making cartoon-style drawings of all the plates/scutes of the different Farlowella in the tank and boy, are they ever different between species! The link above gave me some 'old' papers that had the # of plates between this and that part etc, not just the ventral scutes so I'm certainly learning my fish anatomy but any other help is always appreciated.

I have *maybe* four different types. The yellow 'F. vittata' has a different number of scutes down his sides and many more between the two side fins.

I don't know if this helps with your photographs but do any 2-scute bellied Farlowella have a distinct darker line down the middle of a lighter back, from just behind the eyes to the top fin? It's not really dark in my pictures but I guess now that he's calmed down, his colour is better and that middle stripe is wider and almost black - none of the Cat-elog pictures show this, a wee bit of a darker stripe but not like this one.

I'm still bending a bit towards F. platorynchus and F. amazonum. One picture of F. pseudogladiolas looked right but it turns out that one is actually F.amazonum...

Don't have any catfish books - keep getting outbid So I'll PM you my email, thank you.

[L number Banana]

Thanks for the info racoll, getting a billion or so daylight pictures of my Twigs tomorrow to pin up beside the PDF and get to work I think the odd pics in the F.amazonum species page may be in that file too

On the terribly rotten side of life, I lost my biggest F.mariaelenae! He was just fine yesterday, eating the veg and doing things normally but last night he was somewhat sluggish when I noticed he was in the same place for ages and gave the water a puff with my turkey baster. He moved a bit but I noticed a bit of white colouring, not like rot or ich but like a patch of stress colouring. Gave a little melafix just in case.This morning he was on the bottom, upside down.

Examined him closely with a magnifying glass and there didn't seem to be a thing wrong. I guess I'll never know. Now the little tiny F.mariaelenae needs a new buddy again.

Tested the water every which way and did a larger than usual water change just in case. Everyone else is behaving normally...except...the P.maccus and L401 are more active and eating in public! Near the front of the tank even The only recent change was buying a new light on Saturday - went from 2 older 4 foot t12 fluorescents to one t5 10,000k daylight with an actinic 03 Blue t5. Found lots of new colours on old fish

Hmm, plEcos seem to like the lighting better but lost a new friend - that sucks. Poor dude, he was the biggest twig in the tank. The only saving grace is that both F.mariaelenae were found locally in a big box store that always has them on sale for $4.99 or so CDN.

The new flat-nosed twig is doing well but still REALLY skinny and living on the zucchini and kale. From a quick glance thru the Retzer & Page, he still looks most like F.henriquei but counting scutes from a picture will confirm that he's one of them and I like them all.
Thanks for your help, I'll post when I've got it figured out.

[L number Banana]

New pics to confirm ID.
Fuzzy but may help. Number of side scutes/belly scute/nose length comparison and cleithrum shape rules out the ones in the Cat-elog.
Likely F.henriquei but fish is gone so no more pics. If someone can confirm, maybe we could use the for the cat-elog until someone else gets good quality pics?

Flat nosed twig to the left and F. vittata to the right.






Going back to the same LFS in Dec so maybe they'll have more and ones that are a little healthier, slightly sunken belly on this one but was worth the efforts.

[Shane]

Very interesting and certainly not an F. vittata variant (even taking into account that what is now F. vittata is the "lumping" of what was once four vaild spp.). Of course I can't locate my copy of Retzer and Page after our recent move. Looks like I have some digging around the house to do.
-Shane

[L number Banana]

Shane:

Very interesting and certainly not an F. vittata variant (even taking into account that what is now F. vittata is the "lumping" of what was once four vaild spp.). Of course I can't locate my copy of Retzer and Page after our recent move. Looks like I have some digging around the house to do.
-Shane

Hi Shane,
I used Retzer & Page 1997 p.71 to come up with the F.henriquei as the potential candidate. All the species listed had a feature of some kind that was different than this one. The comments for F.herniquei were limited but there was enough there to confirm that it had the same features. Should have counted the teeth when it died but was too upset to think straight.

How do I find out what species have been found/described since? F.henriquei occurs in Rio Araguaia drainage, maybe there's more from that area since the publication?

[MatsP]

Fishbase lists these

I got this by going to www.fishbase.org and then searching for Genus is Farlowella, and species contains <nothing>, and then selecting "show valid names only". From a quick scan, it seems like there is no Farlowella described after Retzer & Page 1997.

--
Mats

[MatsP]

I take that back, Retzer described one new species in 2006, F. altocorpus.

--
Mats

[L number Banana]

Thanks MatsP,

Not that fish either, his nose is too short. Here's the link: http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2006f/zt01282p068.pdf

I wish I'd known how to preserve the little guy. Any tips if this ever happens again?

[Proteus]

curious if I can hijack this thread and post pictures of my 3 guys (I thought was a vittia for some help in positive ID as one does look slightly different than the others when I get around to sneaking on them and taking pics of them because I really love this thread?

[Dave Rinaldo]

I wish I'd known how to preserve the little guy. Any tips if this ever happens again?

70% non-denatured ethanol is what they use at The Ichthyology Collection here at the University of Texas at Austin. But they won't let me have that

Everclear, or generic, works.

[MatsP]

curious if I can hijack this thread and post pictures of my 3 guys (I thought was a vittia for some help in positive ID as one does look slightly different than the others when I get around to sneaking on them and taking pics of them because I really love this thread?

I'd say it's probably less confusing for everyone if you start another thread. That way, we only have YOUR fish in that thread, and only LNB's fish in this thread - we've had more than one case of "No, that's the species X", "Oh, wait, that's not the same fish as the first few pictures, it really is species X". And those discussions never help anyone.

--
Mats

[Shane]

Code: Select all

Everclear, or generic, works.

I use Vodka in a pinch, but something like Everclear would be better for long term preservation.
-Shane

[L number Banana]

Proteus wrote: curious if I can hijack this thread and post pictures of my 3 guys (I thought was a vittia for some help in positive ID as one does look slightly different than the others when I get around to sneaking on them and taking pics of them because I really love this thread?

I totally love this thread too, there's never enough on here about the Twigs and maybe there's more kinds out there but we all have just been poking them in under F.vittata or F.acus if we went by the labels. I'd love to use my new found knowledge (actually a really good source) to help you ID your Twigs. See if you can get a really good side pic, a top of the head pic and a belly pic. Most of the descriptions are by the number of plates or scutes and also by the shape and length of various features. I'll keep checking the ID section for your name

Dave Rinaldo wrote:

70% non-denatured ethanol is what they use at The Ichthyology Collection here at the University of Texas at Austin. But they won't let me have that

Oh goodie, I worked at a pharmacy for 15 years so that stuff is a piece of cake. Actually it's 70% alcohol - enough the same? The pharmacists know I prefer Champagne I hadn't realized it would be that easy!

Shane, Good tip and I might just have made the sacrifice for this little fish if I'd known that he was special. I've found 5 special twigs in my choice-poor locale. Now of course it's my challenge to find more

[Bas Pels]

Dave Rinaldo wrote:

70% non-denatured ethanol is what they use at The Ichthyology Collection here at the University of Texas at Austin. But they won't let me have that

Oh goodie, I worked at a pharmacy for 15 years so that stuff is a piece of cake. Actually it's 70% alcohol - enough the same? The pharmacists know I prefer Champagne I hadn't realized it would be that easy!

From a chemists point of view, alcohol is a group of compunds, starting with methanol, ethanol propanol et cetera. the -ol tells it's an alcohol

At home, we currently drink only one kind of alcohol, that is ethanol

So, in a laboratory, please sat ethanol, and at home say alcohol

But it is exactly the same

[MatsP]

From a chemists point of view, alcohol is a group of compunds, starting with methanol, ethanol propanol et cetera. the -ol tells it's an alcohol

At home, we currently drink only one kind of alcohol, that is ethanol

At least if you got it from a shop that sold it for drinking purposes ;)

So, in a laboratory, please sat ethanol, and at home say alcohol

But it is exactly the same

I got somewhat annoyed at the telly the other day, when the TV series showed a student stealing a bottle of Ethanol from chemistry class, and then sold a mix of some drink with ethanol added. Then some teacher found out and all hell broke loose - and then they said something along the lines of "It's Ethanol, this student has had some of it, quickly to hospital... You can die from drinking Ethanol..." - yes, of course, it's toxic. But the human body is quite capable of processing it with not too much ill effect. But they made it out like it's completely different from the stuff most of us enjoy in moderation...

Sorry to completely sidetrack the issue.

--
Mats

[L number Banana]

MatsP:

I got somewhat annoyed at the telly the other day, when the TV series showed a student stealing a bottle of Ethanol from chemistry class, and then sold a mix of some drink with ethanol added. Then some teacher found out and all hell broke loose - and then they said something along the lines of "It's Ethanol, this student has had some of it, quickly to hospital... You can die from drinking Ethanol..." - yes, of course, it's toxic. But the human body is quite capable of processing it with not too much ill effect. But they made it out like it's completely different from the stuff most of us enjoy in moderation...

Sorry to completely sidetrack the issue.

We had some type of the same story but I didn't realize it was the same as the stuff at the pharmacy. I think there could be a lot bigger issues with someone stealing things from a chemistry classes. Maybe they wanted to scare others from doing the same but then again what happened to accuracy? Then people wonder why less of us are watching TV.

[Shane]

The interesting thing to me is that you are able to find so many different spp. I think, as in the case of many other aquarium catfish genera, there are neat fish to be had even in "regular" pet stores if you have the "eye" to tell them apart. Corydoras specialists have known this for a long time.
-Shane

[L number Banana]

Hi Shane,
I'm off to the fish store again this week and have my hopes up a wee bit. Even if I end up with several that I can't ID, they're still a very cool fish and the hunt is part of the fun. An all farlowella tank would be beautiful.

I guess the fact that so many different ones have shown up here means either a) the species is doing well and there's lots out there to catch or b) they're getting harder to find and fishers are looking in more remote locations.
I really hope it's a).

Will someday have to ask Jools to modify the part of the F. vittata page that refers to them as furniture. A quiet child would never be called furniture!

[MatsP]

Will someday have to ask Jools to modify the part of the F. vittata page that refers to them as furniture. A quiet child would never be called furniture!

Don't need to ask Jools - I've modified it. Jools needs to click "accept" on the change at some point.

Oh, could you e-mail me the Retzer & Page PDF?

--
Mats

[L number Banana]

Oh, could you e-mail me the Retzer & Page PDF?

--
Mats

Will do and thanks for the moving the furniture around

edit: Just tried to send it but can't figure out how to PM and attachment. Can you send me an email and I'll just use reply? Or explain how I add the attachment?