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Hi everyone!

Can someone give a species identification of this Synodontis?
In advance thanks!



Cheers
Yann

could be S. multipunctatus, S.polli or S.petricola

Juvenile S. multipunctatus, from the look of it.

Hi Yann!

Maybe ask Erwin. He has an article about the three species in the new DATZ. I dont have it here to check what fish you got...

It is certainly not a S. multipuntatus, juvenile or otherwise. The skin is too granular, the shape of the head, the shape and color of the eye are all wrong.

My guess (guess mind you) would be one of the many regional variants of S. petricola. I personally have kept three distinctly different forms of S. petricola, I am sure many others are occasionally collected/imported.

Sincerely,
Paul E. Turley

That's the one and only Synodontis cf "polli" from Zambia!
This is an undescribed species from Zambia, that's already bred in captivity. Like petricola it's an eggsctatterer, but it grows slightly bigger, more blocky. Other names in the LFs are Polli Zambia, sp "white Zambia" and White polli.

Again (for the umpth time I think )
-petricola has a WHITE dorsal spine, not black, especially with juveniles. And a stretched profile, different markings and a flatter, wider head.
-multipunctatus has smooth skin, big eyes, a different profile, longer whiskers and BLACK pectoral spines!
-polli has those orange eyes, but true polli's have shorter whiskers and a wider mouth. Juvenile true polli's and "Zambian Polli's" are very hard to separate, but it can be done if you check the mouth, and of course the humerals.

If it were not for the lack of a white dorsal spine, I wouldn't hesitate to call this fish "S. petricola", probably "dwarf". Though it's probably true that there's a continuum of characteristics between "S. petricola" and "S. polli", I prefer to think of "S. polli" as a discrete, well-defined species, and "S. petricola" as a complex of multiple related species. (FWIW, we have many S. polli collected in Zambian waters, and they don't look at all like this.) Therefore, I would tentatively call this fish "S. cf. petricola".

However, perhaps the real point is that there are many related Tanganyika Synodontis species that have yet to be defined by science, and for now, it's hard to identify these species accurately.

Dinyar