A very odd lanceolata-type Rineloricaria

[bekateen]

Hi All,

Yesterday I had the good fortune to visit The Wet Spot in Portland, Oregon. In their tank of Colombian

Rineloricaria eigenmanni

, they had a mixture of what superficially looked like reddish

Rineloricaria lanceolata

or

Rineloricaria heteroptera

. There were several large males and a mix of subadults, but I didn't see an large females, so I didn't buy any.

The big males were about 11-12 cm SL (maybe less, but not much less) in my estimation and what was striking was the redness of their cheek odontodes.

Speaking with others on Facebook, Norman Behr said they are a unique flattened (and the big males were flat) variant of the lanceolata group.
Mitsuhiro Iwamoto said he gets them imported occasionally to Japan. He noted that their tail color pattern is very different from typical Rineloricaria lanceolata. He calls them Rineloricaria sp. `immix` because they appear to have the body pattern of R. lanceolata and the tail of R. eigenmanni. While I agree this fish looks like a mix, I think the tail reminds me more of

Rineloricaria melini

because it's so dark.

Looking in the CLOG, I see that we already have an entry for them:

Rineloricaria sp(5)

.

Here's a few pics.

Cheers, Eric