It's Otocinclus arnoldi?

[Andrea Perotti]

Hello .... it's an O. arnoldi?

[MatsP]

According to Catalog of Fishes, O. arnoldi is a synonym of

Otocinclus flexilis

. Since your fish doesn't look even remotely like O. flexilis, it's unlikely that it is (even if we disregard the synonymy) O. arnoldi.

I double checked with Mergus Catfish Atlas, which also has the same synonymy.

Sorry, I can't tell you what it is. I'm sure Mike Noren will be around soon to let us out of our misery.

--
Mats

[DutchFry]

I'm quite sure this is

Otocinclus vittatus

I have 7 of these myself they are beautiful oto's.

[Andrea Perotti]

Thanks ... but ... why this information? Look the photos inside...

- http://www.bbayaquariums.com/select-action.cfm?ID=91
- http://atlas.acuavida.com/aguadulce/pec ... i.jpg.html
- http://zipcodezoo.com/Animals/O/Otocinclus_arnoldi/
- http://www.unep-wcmc.org/isdb/Taxonomy/ ... esNo=59745
- http://www.ciao.es/Otocinclus_arnoldi__403807
- http://www.elmersaquarium.com/10cat_oticinclus.htm
- http://www.poissons-exo.com/otocinclus-arnoldi-145.html
- http://www.aqua4you.de/fischart1515.html
- http://www.amazon-fisch.de/fisch/wels/w ... rnoldi.htm
- http://www.hippocampus-bildarchiv.com/t ... anteII.htm
- http://www.unep-wcmc.org/isdb/Taxonomy/ ... =resources
- http://wildfish.ru/node/35
- etc... etc...

Otocinclus flexilis is this: http://www.planetcatfish.com/images/ful ... ilis/1.jpg and my Otos are total different.

In Italy the price for 1 Otocinclus flexilis is 11 / 14 Euro, for 1 Otocinclus arnoldi is 3 / 5 Euro. I've paid my 4.90 Euro

Where is the error?

[Andrea Perotti]

This is a my Otocinclus vittatus:



...is similar to that of the other photos, but not equal, they change ends of the lobes of the tail, rounded in the other picture, sharp in this one.

Sorry for my English, I'm Italian.

[MatsP]

Yes, by searching the Internet, I'm sure we can find all sorts of evidence for things that aren't true - whether that is that the moonlanding is a fake, or that my common bristlnoses are

Ancistrus dolichopterus

rather than

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

- there are after all pictures on Wikipedia called A. dolichopterus that are clearly the common variety... I could also find that my common Ancistrus are

Ancistrus temminckii

.

Unfortunately, if someone buys a fish called X and don't know any better, they will probably post photos of it as X. That doesn't actually make it that species.

The ACSI (All Catfish Species Inventory) supposedly has a picture of the holotype (the fish used for the original description) of O. arnoldi. Unfortunately, that site is not currently working.

I will see if I can get hold of the species pictures another way, and then put them up here on Planet Catfish.

When I did an image search, I found a lot of pictures supposedly showing O. arnoldi, but if as I suspect, the fish looks pretty much like O. flexilis, then all those images are indeed wrong. But then this is not Ancistrus dolichopterus, which is the second picture to come up when searching for that species in google image search


Photo copyright André Karwath.

--
Mats

[Mike_Noren]

Yes, vittatus.

O. arnoldi is presently considered a synonym of

Otocinclus flexilis

.

As for what's pictured under that name on the net... In the pet trade "O. arnoldi" has been used as a grab-bag for various species from several genera. Basically, it's rare that Otocinclus are sold under the right name, the norm is that they get fanciful ID's like "affinis" or "vestitus". Or "arnoldi".

Edit: Andrea, your second fish is probably also a vittatus, although it is unusually dark and has a wider dark stripe and less distinct pigmentation than "typical" vittatus. Perhaps different populations, vittatus has a huge distribution and there is geographic variation, but it could also be a different species. Your first fish is a typical vittatus.

[Andrea Perotti]

Ok, thank you very much.

[L number Banana]

Can't add any info but those are wonderful pictures!