L015 vs L103

[BasS]

Hi,

I've seen on the internet that the Peckoltia Vittata is sold as L015 and L103.
As far as I know the L015 is comming from the rio Xingu and the L103 not.
Exept of the number, how can diffences been seen of those two species?

Cheers!!

[MatsP]

So, first of all, L015 refers to one of the variants of

Peckoltia vittata

that can be found in Rio Xingu. According to Catalog of Fishes (and the Cat-eLog here on Planet Catfish), Peckoltia vittata is widespread throughout the Lower and Middle reaches of the Amazon river. Within the Amazon, there are several other Peckoltia L-numbers that are also similar to L015. For example

L140

,

L080

,

L049

,

Peckoltia sp`rio_tocantins`

. These are from the Amazon river, and looks quite similar to L015. They may well all, on a technical level, be what scientists call P. vittata, or they may be sufficiently different to be classified as different species. This will also depend on whether the scientist is a "splitter" (takes any opportunity to find something a new species) or "lumper" (will take any excuse to put multiple variants under one scientific name).

L103 is a similar looking fish, which is from the Rio Orinoco basin. It is outside of the KNOWN distribution of P. vittata, so we'd require the scientists to confirm that it is indeed the same species or come up with a description of the new species that is different from P. vittata. If the export location is known, then it's fairly easy to tell which one it is, but it's quite difficult if there is no location information. Asking the seller whether it was exported from Brazil (most of the Amazon fish would be in this group) or Colombia (Rio Orinoco fish).

Unfortunately, there are quite a few shops/wholesalers/exporters that "find the first match" or "find most valuable match" for a fish when putting labels on their fish. The latter is clearly done for money and , but the former can probably be excused by "ignorance".

--
Mats

[BasS]

Thank you for your detailed information.
I was thinking almost the same, but I wanted to be sure.
As I could not find many differences within those two species except the place were it is caught.
And indeed about the shops, I've seen many differences with the prices.
Some ask 3 times more than other ones.

And for breeding, I can assume that there is no diffence between them I think?

[MatsP]

I don't know how L103 breeds. If anyone has bred L103, then it would help us to know how they breed - the information could then also be added to the Cat-eLog for others to see. If someone asked me to hypothesize about their breeding, I would say "identical to L015".

And when I say the easy way to tell them apart is the capture location, this doesn't mean that there aren't some subtle differences somewhere between these fish - just that there is no very obvious way to my knowledge. Again, if someone has some personal experience with these fish, it would help if we can get any information on this.

--
Mats

[BasS]

For breeding, off course you could not know when you buy a L015 if it is really a L015, so I think the best starting point will be the breeding survey of the L015. If that works, it is fine, if not some adjustments can be made, to change the waterparms into the other area.
To be honnest, these dependecies are quit difficult.
Maybe that is one of the reason why this hobby is so nice

[BasS]

I've found some more scientific information about the L015
Maybe it is nice to read.

http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2008/f/zt01822p076.pdf

Starting on page 40.

In this document is also stated that the Peckoltia vittata was been found in Colombia.

Difficult....

[MatsP]

I have read parts of that paper, but I didn't read it with the intention of looking at P. vittata (as I read it with the intention to put updates into P. bachi species data sheet at the time).

Interestingly, the Zootaxa document linked above suggests that a distribution throughout the Orinoco region of P. vittata, so scientifically L015 and L103 are probably the same species. This doesn't mean that we should just mix variants from one river with those from another river. The paper even suggests that there is a population of this species in the Guyana region as well.

--
Mats

[BasS]

I understand you did not read it per specie specific.

But how more information we share, how more we learn.
I agree it is not good mixing up fishes from different rivers.
The ones found in Guyana can be also an undiscribed specie or a vittata. I thought there is not enough scientific evidence to say something about that.

[MatsP]

Yes, indeed, it's not CERTAIN that it's the same species in Guyana, as the - just illustrating that it appears that P. vittata is very wide-spread in the current definition of that species. Someone may in the future come along and split it up - this happens from time to time (recent revision of the Auchenoglanis "Giraffe Catfish" genera came up with, I think [I have the paper, but I haven't read it yet], three different "new" species from the previously existing two species). It also happens that species are put together under the same label -

Peckoltia bachi

was put together with the P. ucayalensis in the above paper, where previously they were considered separate species.

--
Mats