PlanetCatfish.com

Puzzled by this Synodontis:

<image removed, as it was replaced with one taken about 3 years after this thread started>

<image removed, as it was replaced with one taken about 3 years after this thread started>

Corybreed and I were discussing the identity of a group of the same fish last night. The above photos were recently posted in the Catelog as Synodontis notatus, but I doubt that's correct. The humeral process is pointed in this fish and rounded in S. notatus, the adipose fin is smaller in the pictured fish and the head shape is also different. The other photos in the C'log of S. notatus are correctly IDed in my opinion, and the differences show quite clearly. See the image below:

<image removed, as it was replaced with one taken about 3 years after this thread started>

Neither is this fish S. nummifer, or any other Syno with black spots on a silver background that I can think of.

Baensch I captions what appears to be this fish as "S. notatus", but I believe the "S. nummifer" in Baensch II is the real S. notatus.

Any insights?

Dinyar

[Mod edit: remove links to old style named photos, that have been replaced by other photos later on - just fixing the links would just have been misleading... --Mats]

Not sure on the top 2 pics but I'm pretty sure the bottom pic is S. congicus. Hopefully Lee is reading this and can give his opinion.

Tom wrote:Not sure on the top 2 pics but I'm pretty sure the bottom pic is S. congicus. Hopefully Lee is reading this and can give his opinion.

You may be right, but I'm still confused... Burgess shows a photo captioned "S. congicus" which looks like the second fish above. The drawing in Poll (1971) is also consistent with it.

But whereas Burgess shows the first fish above as S. notatus, Poll shows S. notatus as also having a rounded humeral. So the ID of the first would appear to still be in question.

Dinyar

I think someone should look at the original descriptions of all the nominal species synonymized with S. notatus. Perhaps a clue can be found there.

After studying as many photographs of S. notatus as I could, I conclude that the first two pictures are indeed of this species. The shape of the humeral process changes with age in Synodontis (it usually broadens in older fish), so this is a character that should be used with some caution.

If you look carefully at the first two photos, you will see that the humeral process is not exactly pointed, but has something of a rounded tip that is a little more acute (although certainly not as broad as the illustration in Poll). I believe this represents the juvenile condition and the humeral process will eventually grow to resemble the one in the Poll drawing.

A picture of a similarly-shaped process can be found in Japanese publications, most notably in the Kobayagawa (The World of Catfishes) and Ejima (Catfishes of the World) books (although an identical picture was used in those two books). The picture in Vol. 1 of the Baensch Atlas also shows a similar condition.

So would you say that this
<image removed, as it was replaced 3 years after this thread was started>
is not notatus, congicus, perhaps? Or just a more mature notatus?

I have had a fish just like it for some time, acquired at around 3-4 cm, and it's had a very rounded humeral process since I first got it. To my eye, this fish #2 looks significantly different from #1.

(As you know, Kobayagawa is rife with misidentifications, so I'd take it with no less salt than Baensch.)

[Mod edit: remove image links that have been replaced --Mats]

The adipose fin is too long for S. notatus. That would be S. congicus.

I don't trust many of the aquarium books any further than I can throw them, but since the likelihood that an undescribed Synodontis would show up in the aquarium trade with such frequency (if it shows up with that kind of frequency, it would also have shown up in museum collections and be recognized for what it is) is not statistically very high, I tend to agree that they've got that one right.

This is 25 cm adult notatus.

Are all synos with only one spot per side always S. notatus?

No, S. nummifer can have that too.

OK, these IDs make sense to me.

So in addition to the one above, the following two Catelog photos should be moved from S. notatus to S. congicus.

<images removed>

...the likelihood that an undescribed Synodontis would show up in the aquarium trade with such frequency (if it shows up with that kind of frequency, it would also have shown up in museum collections and be recognized for what it is) is not statistically very high...

Fair enough as a generalization, but the example of "S. petricola 'dwarf'" shows that that's not necessarily true. It's widely available in the hobby and definitely not a hybrid, but completely absent from museum collections and still undescribed by science.

Mika, is the adult S. notatus you posted a picture of above your fish? If so, would it be possible to get a clearer shot of its humeral process? (I don't doubt the ID, just trying to see what the humeral looks like in an adult fish.)

[Mod edit: remove old image links --Mats]

Fair enough as a generalization, but the example of "S. petricola 'dwarf'" shows that that's not necessarily true.

I was thinking more of fish that would reach a reasonable size and be caught (and sold in the markets) for food by the locals. Synodontis notatus fits that bill.

Mika, is the adult S. notatus you posted a picture of above your fish?

Unfortunately not

Hi all.

I will just follow along with my opinion (which seems to be the general feeling already) that Dinyar's first two pictures are S. notatus and the last one is S. congicus.

In regards to the spots on S. notatus and S. congicus: The number of spots doesn't appear to mean much and they often do not match up on both sides of the body. I had one S. notatus with one good sized spot on the left side and no spot at all on the right. S. congicus can at times show multiple irregularly placed spots of varying size (or none at all as the one photo shows). According to Poll one may find a wide variation in the spotting patterns among a given population of S. notatus, and it appears that the same situation also exists with S. congicus.

Lee

I've moved the three pictures to in todays update. I note that this species may, or may not, have barring in the fins?

Jools

Shouldn't you leave the first two in S. notatus and move the third to S. congicus as per what Lee and I agree on?

What happened to this?

Dinyar wrote:OK, these IDs make sense to me.

So in addition to the one above, the following two Catelog photos should be moved from S. notatus to S. congicus.

lee wrote:I will just follow along with my opinion (which seems to be the general feeling already) that Dinyar's first two pictures are S. notatus and the last one is S. congicus.

Dinyar's first two pics were:
<images removed>

and these remain in S. notatus. The three I moved were:

<images removed>

Right? Wrong? I'll have to hold off on the upload until this is resolved as it will moved all the images used in this thread around!

Jools

[Mod edit: remove images with broken links (notatus instead of notata), as images have been updated since anyways --Mats]

Right. When you said "all three", I thought you meant all three in Dinyar's original post.
My bad.

Yeah, it's confusing as the post started out with 3 fish, two of which appear now to be correct and the 3rd should be moved. Then a further two were discussed which, along with the 3rd, should be moved to <em>S. congicus</em>.

All sorted now!

Jools

Anyone reading this post will get TOTALLY confused as all the images used have now changed!