Chaetostoma?

[N0body Of The Goat]

Someone I know on another forum has uploaded pics of this catfish, but he is unsure of the ID. My best guess at the mo is

Chaetostoma platyrhynchus

...

Would you agree?

[Mod edit: Use CLOG tags for link to species --Mats]

[MatsP]

I'm not sure this is a Chaetostoma - it's quite hard to tell from these pictures. A photo of the mouth would confirm if it's a Chaetostoma or not. As to species, I think this fish is stressed, so it won't look like the "real" fish, which makes it hard to put a concrete ID to it.

--
Mats

[Suckermouth]

That is definitely not C. platyrhynchus. This fish is not wide enough, and doesn't conform to the typical Chaetostoma group body shape. Plus, C. platyrhynchus's dorsal fin should go past its adipose fin, and it doesn't look like it does that in the pictured fish.

Couldn't tell you what it is, though.

BTW Mats, it looks like Chaetostoma platyrhynchus and Cordylancistrus platyrhynchus clog pages are still split.

[DutchFry]

It looks like some sort of Ancistrus to me. it has the white tips at the end of the caudal and dorsal which are characteristics for many species in this genus.

[Shane]

I am with Tim. Looks to be a young Ancistrus, possibly

Ancistrus triradiatus

.

-Shane

[N0body Of The Goat]

Thanks for the input so far!

Some comments made me start looking further afield than just the Chaetostoma genus, which resulted in me finding Lasiancistrus cf. caucanus, often accidentally shipped with Chaetostoma.

Lasiancistrus cf_caucanus

Granted, the intensity of the colouring is quite different, but as said above this could be a stress reaction to being placed in the "photo" tank by the owner.

[Mod edit: use CLOG tags --Mats]

[MatsP]

In medicine there is a saying "When you hear hoofs, expect horses, not zebras". It means, the most likely scenario is that it's the common illness.

In this case, I would expect this fish to be a fairly common one, UNLESS there's some good evidence of the contrary. Ancistrus are by far more common than Lasiancistrus species. The species you linked to, L. cf. caucanus is definitely not common in the trade. The photos are by Shane Linder, who probably caught these fish himself, although may occasionally turn up with Chaetostoma in the shops...

Of course, SOMETIMES, you do see zebras. I'm basically asking what the grounds are for suspecting that this fish is really unusual - neither of the two species suggested by yourself has a single registered keeper in the Cat-eLog - and there are some 1900 keepers and 22000 groups of fish registered - so these fish are pretty rare...

Ancistrus triradiatus, on the other hand has about 16 keepers registered - and probably more people have kept them at some point...

--
Mats

[nvcichlids]

this fish to me definately is NOT

Lasiancistrus cf_caucanus

. Look from the dorsal back at the

Lasiancistrus cf_caucanus

and then the fish in question. The fish in question seems to have a much more compact back half, where the

Lasiancistrus cf_caucanus

is quite elongated. The

Lasiancistrus cf_caucanus

also seems to peak in body height right behind the eyes and then taper off, the fish in question seems to have a decent body height for a large portion of the body.

I am terrible with ancistrus and can't seem to keep them alive, but based on my memory of body shape (and looking in the catelog) I would say an ancistrus could fit the build.