Anyone help identify this catfish, believe a pseudopimelodus of some kind but unsure.

[Lewis s]

Roughly 37cm in size

[bekateen]

Hi Lewis s,

Is that 37cm TL or SL? If SL, I'm leaning towards

Pseudopimelodus mangurus

, but if TL, I'm not so certain.

Cheers, Eric

[yellowcat]

I'm inclined to agree with bekateen, the fish shown most closely resembles p. bufonis to me but they rarely grow past 23cm TL. I raised a p. bufonis variant to 28cm TL for many years and that being the largest I've seen. P. mangurus grow much larger, the Cat-elog shows them to grow to 345 cm but I've seen evidence of much larger specimens caught in the Rio La Plata. I would think imports from that region must be rather rare. This species is the largest found in pseudopimelodidae...

[Viktor Jarikov]

My vote is on bufonis. If past were of any indication, we never get mangurus in the trade.

BTW, I don't see the memorable picture posted by Yellowcat in the Cat-eLog anymore under mangurus or any other Pseudopimelodus. I wonder what happened and why it disappeared.

[Lewis s]

Giant-p.-mungurus.jpgI'm inclined to agree with bekateen, the fish shown most closely resembles p. bufonis to me but they rarely grow past 23cm TL. I raised a p. bufonis variant to 28cm TL for many years and that being the largest I've seen. P. mangurus grow much larger, the Cat-elog shows them to grow to 345 cm but I've seen evidence of much larger specimens caught in the Rio La Plata. I would think imports from that region must be rather rare. This species is the largest found in pseudopimelodidae...

Hello, at first when purchased I thought it was a bufonis but was about 30cm at the size and has since grown, also never heard of bufonis this big which made me have my doubts, making me think was a mangurus jus never heard of them in the hobby.

[Lewis s]

My vote is on bufonis. If past were of any indication, we never get mangurus in the trade.

BTW, I don't see the memorable picture posted by Yellowcat in the Cat-eLog anymore under mangurus or any other Pseudopimelodus. I wonder what happened and why it disappeared.

Yes I've just never heard of bufonis getting soo big but with adequate food etc I guess anything is possible. I did rescue this fish from a store who took in fish from someone who's tank broke so who knows how old it is. The store also had no idea of species.

[Lewis s]

Hi Lewis s,

Is that 37cm TL or SL? If SL, I'm leaning towards

Pseudopimelodus mangurus

, but if TL, I'm not so certain.

Cheers, Eric

Hello, sorry what is meant by TL or SL. I also thought mangurus after a while as too big to be bufonis but wasnt certain.

[bekateen]

TL is total length, including tail. SL is standard length, which does not include the tail.

Cheers, Eric

[Lewis s]

Yes measurement was total length so including tail

[yellowcat]

Again a photo from my 'wish list' archives. This fish is said to be a p. bufonis from Colombia. That said, there are 3 other species of pseudopimelodus endemic to Colombia, most never seen in the trade and as most pseudopimelodus species so closely resemble each other there's currently no real way to compare without more live specimen photos, studies and collection point data from the wild and missing documentation thereof. The only catfish species I've ever seen imported from the same river system shared with p. mangurus is pseudoplatystoma corruscans and that is quite rare in the trade, hence the likelihood of the fish being p. mangurus seems unlikely. Should the fish in question continue to grow even larger then it may be something other than p. bufonis, otherwise may just be an exceptionally large bufonis or ?...

[Viktor Jarikov]

Sounds like a tough one. Well, in the spirit of Occam's razor, if it looks like bufonis, quacks like bufonis, but too big, it's time to upgrade the bufonis max size in Cat-eLog. All that's needed is a reliable photo with a ruler next to the fish.

[Lewis s]

Thanks a lot , time to get photographing