PlanetCatfish.com

... is now listed as Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus. That's fine with me.
But unles I miss something, the name Ancistrus sp.(3) has completely vanished from the data sheet. I would suggest to re-enter that name (in general remarks) for referential purposes because many topics include A. sp. (3) and it would now seem that all those topics are about 1 fish on a stamp .

Argh! It is even worse, there are 3786 hits when searching for "Ancistrus sp 3" in the Forum [how many of those are clog tags and how many aren't is a good question - you can't search for tags because the search engine removes those, AFAICT].

Now, it's even worse because A. sp(3) is now introduced as a NEW, different species [on a stamp from Brazil], so any reference to that fish will definitely cause a hit in the CLOG database.

Can I make a suggestion on how to solve this temporarily and for the future:
For now: To fix the current problem, rename the current (new) A. sp(3) to A. sp(7). That way, the current links are at least not leading to a completely different species - just leading nowhere [which I _think_ is slightly better].

In future:
Do not re-use sp(n) numbers - once the species has been identifed, the next unknown of the same genus should be identified by a different number. This will solve the problem where a link to something suddenly changes to a new variant.

Further, we probably should have a sp(n) -> genuine species translation [as well as synonyms, so perhaps just as "special category" of "cat-elog synonyms" that contain the translation from sp(n) -> genuine species - the special category would then be used to hide the species in the synonym list (or perhaps mark it as "special Cat-eLog", perhaps even optionally)].

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Mats

How come this has changed?

I don't go on PC for two days and everything changes!

racoll wrote:How come this has changed?

Ingo Seidel's (new) article in Shane's World

MatsP wrote:Can I make a suggestion on how to solve this temporarily and for the future:
For now: To fix the current problem, rename the current (new) A. sp(3) to A. sp(7). That way, the current links are at least not leading to a completely different species - just leading nowhere [which I _think_ is slightly better].

Further, we probably should have a sp(n) -> genuine species translation [as well as synonyms, so perhaps just as "special category" of "cat-elog synonyms" that contain the translation from sp(n) -> genuine species - the special category would then be used to hide the species in the synonym list (or perhaps mark it as "special Cat-eLog", perhaps even optionally)].

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Mats

I agree with Mats that we shouldn't be reusing retired sp(n) identifiers; I'd also include the old sp(n) as a synonym when we get a "name" for any species, be that a scientific name, L or C number or whatever (I think Mats is suggesting that in his last paragraph but can't be sure).

The use of species numbers has become widespread even off this website (basically because they're for fish that can't be named and haven't been given L-numbers; my local LFS showed me some of his import sheets last week and even the importers were using Planet Catfish species number identifiers. Reusing the numbers is going to cause so much confusion!

The use of species numbers has become widespread even off this website (basically because they're for fish that can't be named and haven't been given L-numbers; my local LFS showed me some of his import sheets last week and even the importers were using Planet Catfish species number identifiers.

This shows the power of Planet Catfish! I just did a google for "Ancistrus sp 3", and it got 36000 hits. Certainly some of those pages are directly referring to sp(3) as of Planet Catfish, but there's rubbish hits too.

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Mats

if 10 % refers to PC, and half is rubbish, then the other 40% is quite impressive

Sp (3) is quite widespread. I'd suggest treating it the same way as Planetcatfish treats old L-numbers: by listing it as a common name.
And to not re-use the numeral once the species is identified.

Bas Pels wrote:if 10 % refers to PC, and half is rubbish, then the other 40% is quite impressive

I doubt that 10% of the non-PC references are genuine - but it's still a fair bunch. My point wasn't that there are MANY of them, but the fact that they exist at all.

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Mats

Just a clarification- I meant exporters (I wrote importers ) are using the species numbers allocated on this site (the sheets I saw were from several South American exporters covering Brazil and Columbia)- I'm not sure of importers, but it's quite likely they are.

Carp37 wrote:Just a clarification- I meant exporters (I wrote importers ) are using the species numbers allocated on this site (the sheets I saw were from several South American exporters covering Brazil and Columbia)- I'm not sure of importers, but it's quite likely they are.

I'm pretty sure importers just copy the names of the exporters - that way they can say "Well, that's what the exporter calls it" when someone questions the correctness of their list. At least, that's what most shops do.

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Mats

I know, I know, I know.

Let me have a think about it...

Jools

OK, have removed A. sp(3) and will not reuse. If any mods spot it being used in the forum, please edit it to .

Cheers,

Jools