Giant Chaetostoma at my LFS

[bekateen]

A LFS near me, Carter's Pet Mart in Stockton, CA, recently received two "extra large albinus rubberlip plecos." Never mind that the name "albinus." It gets applied randomly to almost any common rubberlips in fish stores

Tragically, the shipment from the wholesaler got held up somewhere along the line, and the fish arrived four days late. One of the rubberlips was DOA. The other survived.

The dead fish measured 26cm TL, 20cm SL, and the body was 6cm wide behind the opercula. The live fish is as big or bigger. These fish are monsters. Beautiful (i.e., dull grey) fish, but way too big for my tanks.

I don't know the species, but they bear a strong resemblance to the

Chaetostoma brevilabiatum

being shown on Facebook recently.

The LFS gave me the dead fish (frozen), which I will thaw and preserve in formalin.

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

I'd agree with the species ID, they're popping up all over.

Jools

[Shane]

Lots of fishes coming in from Colombia right now. I visited House of Tropicals in Maryland yesterday and they even had "Hypostomus plecostomus" from the llanos as "Colombian pleco." Having collected 1 ,000s of these in Venezuela and Colombia I was tempted to buy one and just keep it as a pet.
-Shane