PlanetCatfish.com

thanks.

A fairly large <i>Synodontis nigrita</i>, methinks.

I guess I should give a little info.
This guy is ALWAYS upside down. Very seldom does he swim right side up.
He hardly moves, spends most of his time upside down at the front of the tank.
He measures a little over 5". I've had him a couple months and never seen him eat. I'm assuming he does when I'm sleeping though.

He enjoys playing dead and attempting to give me heart failure.
He stays at the top, belly up, and you can touch him, with no signs of life. I've poked him in the belly and he just stays there. He'll only move if you prode him hard enough LOL.

I looked at the pics of S/nigrita, and the diffrence is, my guy is black, very very dark...the spots only show up when you get very close and look at his fins, or when I use the camera with flash.

thanks

PS: if more pics are needed, let me know what angle, what parts you need to see and I can get them....he's very easy to photograph.

Many <i>Synodontis</i> spend a fair amount of time swimming upside down, so it's not surprising that <i>S. nigrita</i> would do too.
The spotting becomes less pronounced as the fish ages, so much so that the pattern seen on your fish is more or less typical for large <i>S. nigrita</i>.

Thanking you very much Sir.
Tis nice to have an identity for my syno now.

Nice fish Christina. What was the price for it?

I'm pretty good friends with my LFS and I think I got him for a steal.
I paid $10.00 Canadian for him.

Thanks, I am quite fond of him.

I think this is Synodontis eupterus. The shape of the head and humeral process, eye size and color pattern are fully consistent with S. eupterus. The only anomaly is the lack of a feather fin, but this can be lost for a variety of reasons.

BTW, it's not entirely normal for S. eupterus to spend lots of time upside down at the surface. If it really does this, you may want to check your water quality.

Dinyar

Barbells donâ??t look long enough to me.

http://website.lineone.net/~delbod/hello.jpg

Nope, not <i>S. eupterus</i>. The possibility crossed my mind, but the shape of the humeral process actually suggests otherwise (the tip is more rounded in <i>S. eupterus</i>). The shape of the snout and the length of the adipose fin all point to <i>S. nigrita</i>, as does the dorsal-fin shape.

On the water quality issue: the water's fine. He's in a community tank with loaches, pleco's, cories, platies, and a few small cichlids.

At first I was told he was a eupterus, and all the info I could find on them, including pics, did not suit my fish.

If you want more pics for definate identification, just let me know what is needed, and I should be able to get it.

There seems to be quite a variety in S nigritas, or are we dealing with more species, and is S nigrita sort of a "waste bin" species for any brown vaguely spotted Syno?

Two forms (or species?) jum out; it's the light whiskered brownish fish wich has relatively few small very dark spots (see the pics here), and another wich has very dark whiskers, and many brown spots (it's literally covered with spots) on a brown background.

I'll see if I can get pics somewhere.
for starts: the other "nigrita" looks a LOT like this one:

Christina wrote:If you want more pics for definate identification, just let me know what is needed, and I should be able to get it.

Its head.

Silurus, you may be right!

There seems to be quite a variety in S nigritas, or are we dealing with more species, and is S nigrita sort of a "waste bin" species for any brown vaguely spoted Syno?

This seems to be the case. Christina's fish corresponds to the Nilotic form of <i>S. nigrita</i> (it's virtually identical to the drawing in Boulenger). I suspect that a number of these Nilo-Sudanic catfishes considered conspecific actually consist of more than one species.
But then, as I've mentioned, the spotting pattern changes with age (young fish are more heavily spotted).

ask and ye shall recieve...
anything else ?

I stand corrected. Definitely not S. eupterus. Probably S. nigrita.

Dinyar[/i]

Thanks folks

I could be wrong but I would say Brachysynodontis batensoda. At least, I have a fish just like that, and that's what it was sold as. It spends most of its time upside down.

It cannot be <i>Brachysynodontis</i> as the body is too slender and the adipose fin is too short. <i>Brachysynodontis</i> also has a membraneous flap on the hind edge of the maxillary barbels, which this fish lacks.