Panamense and leightoni

[sturiosoma]

First 2 I believe to be panamense last 3 I thought was panamense any thoughts

Thanks Jeanne

[Jools]

Hi Jeanne,

As I said in our PMs,

Sturisomatichthys panamensis

isn't in the hobby. Unfortunately, it's a name that even 30-40 years later is still used because it is perpetuated from older literature. If you google "Sturisoma panamense" you get a world of misidentified fish - there is even a completely duff Wikipedia entry. So, it's understandable this is a tricky one to place without a lot of back story.

From your "my cats" picture the fish looked a bit like

Sturisomatichthys leightoni

. This is based mainly on the dark mid-body pattern reaching the base of the dorsal fin spine and the fact this is one of the more commonly available species.

Given more pictures to look at we can get better with ID. The larger fish looks like

Sturisomatichthys reinae

, the smaller fish could be that too. There is a "change the ID of my fish" function in My Cats to help in doing that.

Jools