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My partner just got this pleco in from one of our fishermen. Can anyone give me an ID on this?It is 5cm and was caught at the Yavari River on the border of Brasil and Peru.

it looks very similar to zebra plecos, just with brown, but that would mean a new species if that is true?

I am no expert and I do not have my books with me, will browse through the catelog though .

that's different looking...

This is not something I've seen before - not saying it's entirely new, but definitely not something turning up very often.

And it could of course be an "individual variation".

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Mats

very cool looking. unknown what it is, sorry. but it's interesting.

I have no clues.Our fishermen bring in new stuff all the time and especially when they go to new areas.
Trying to get any info on this thing as it may turn out to be the most expensive pleco in the world if I have to go with the fisherman's price!!

It's a different looking pleco and it would be interesting if your fishermen can find some more like it.
The species diversity of Amazonia never ceases to amaze me.

Looks like a (more photos would be good).

Only more specimens will tell us if it's a mutant of something we already know about, or something entirely new.

Having said that, I'm not aware of any from the western Amazon, so could indeed be something new, if the fishermen are to be trusted in their locality information

eczs-1,
You say that your partner got this species in from a local fiserman, that means that you are not there and you have to trust your partner? It does look like an Hypancistrus species closely related/crossbred/hybrid/new with H. zebra, any idea how it ended up in Iquitos or Leticia or Bogota (depending where your partners facility is located) if it was "caught" in Rio Yavari... thats a mystery?

Janne

To help with the ID, it would be good to have a clear side-on view and another shot of the mouth (this needs to be really clear and sharp to be of any use, and it' can be difficult). The shape of mouth and teeth is an important key to various species.

As stated, the fish doesn't look like anything that comes out of the Upper Amazon (here at Planet Catfish, we only list three species in Rio Yavari - I'm sure many more exist in that river, it's just that they are probably prevalent in a portion of the upper Amazon, so it's listed under that name - and it's very hard to find out which rivers have what fish in them, never mind that it's a gigantic task to enter every river that a fish has ever been found in, when there are 2400+ fish in the Cat-eLog).

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Mats

To say it was caught on the Peru/Brazil border may be a way to cover up the fact that it was smuggled from Brazil, which happens frequently. It definately looks like a Hypancistrus, but it's pattern is unique. I think I see the tail of a H.zebra (or something very similar) in the same pic, which may back up the theory that this fish originates from the Xingu area? Just a thought, but still a very likely scenario. The fish would certainly be worth a truckload of money on the Asian market. You should try hard to dig up some more accurate information from your sources in order to solve this case

-Haakon

I have made several collecting trips to Yavari and even collected that area in 2006 with Jools. Sadly I never came across this fish or anything like it. I have also "dug through" many local collectors in the area's catches/holding facilities in Leticia and Bogota and never seen anything like it. That said, why are people already throwing out terms like "hybrid," "crossbred," "smuggled" etc? With the OP's permission I can forward the above pic to friends in Bogota who can probably provide more information.
-Shane

Shane,

Interesting to hear. If this is a new species from Yavari, that would be awesome. We can only hope But the reason why people jump to conclusions is of course because it's likely to be the case that it's not a new Hypancistrus from Yavari, as I'm sure you aggree on We know for a fact that at least H.zebra is smuggled out from Brazil in fairly large numbers, and the depicted fish is certainly not very different in appearance from H.zebra...but if it turns out to be a new species of Hypancistrus, actually from Yavari - it would be a great sensation, wonderful! It's just rather unlikely, that's all ;) And one-offs among Hypancistrus species from Xingu are not all that uncommon. Let's hope eczs-1 can provide us with even more info on it.

-Haakon

I'm not that convinced it is Hypancistrus - it looks quite long and thin for that genus - it may be something else. I'm not saying it's NOT Hypancistrus, but that it COULD be something else.

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Mats

it's likely to be the case that it's not a new Hypancistrus from Yavari, as I'm sure you aggree on

Actually I agree with Mats. We can not assign the above fish to any genus for certain based on a single photo taken at an odd angle. To my eye, this looks more like a young fish. Are we just seeing the juvenile coloration of a known loricariid for the first time?

It would be a great help to know what other fishes arrived in the same shipment.

Also, in all cases I know of where H. zebra were smuggled through Leticia they were 1) Smuggled on purpose for a specific buyer that had prepaid a large portion of the price and 2) Sold as exactly what they were because it is the zebra pleco name that commands a price.

A single Hypancistrus specimen smuggled from Brasil to Bogota only to be shipped to NY as a "one off" fish? Not logical.
-Shane

To me it has all the anatomic traits of a young H.zebra, only the colouration is different - apart from the light blue eyes ;)

This is exciting though, another reminder of why I enjoy this hobby so much

-Haakon

PS: like I mentioned, there seems to be another fish on the pic which could well be a H.zebra, meaning this one could be one among several individuals in stock ;) Could be aimed for the Asian market perhaps?

It could be something else, it's a youngster 5 cm probably TL and looks like a Hypancistrus species... we don't know where eczs-1 partner is located. We don't know where the pic is taken and how this species ended up where it's now, if it's in Peru or Colombia my first thought is that this one is smuggled out from Brazil origin from Rio xingu. If some facts or evidence can prove it's caught in Rio Yavari I will of course change my mind ;)

We don't know where the pic is taken, it can be anywhere on the planet...

Janne

My first impression was that it didn't quite look right for a Hypancistrus let alone H. zebra and I have owned some small ones.
It little pointed head reminded me of my little Parotocinclus cf. epplyei yet I know it is not a Parotocinclus. It may even belong to a new genus although only more details could establish how it should be classified. Seems like there something different could live in the Western part of the Amazon system. I hope this turns out to be the case. There is always space on planetcatfish for another page devoted to a new species of an attractive sucker mouth catfish.

eczs-1 wrote:I have no clues.Our fishermen bring in new stuff all the time and especially when they go to new areas.
Trying to get any info on this thing as it may turn out to be the most expensive pleco in the world if I have to go with the fisherman's price!!

I am curious, how pricey is pricey?

Thanks for all the thoughts.
The fish is in my facility in Peru.Many of our fishermen work only for us and I do have control over getting locality info on different stuff.In the past, I have also been sent pictures of the areas where the fish have been found.
L46 comes in all the time as do several other L numbers.Every shipper in Iquitos is getting them in quantity and getting good prices from the Asia markets.Absolutely no reason for my partner to hide the origin of the fish from me.If it came from Brazil, I would be told "Look what came in with a batch of zebra's!"
I get new and unusual species and color variations of fish all the time.Our fishermen are encouraged to go to new rivers and see what they find...and they are paid to go whether they find anything or not.This cat was the most interesting thing he found on that trip.Other stuff was OK but nothing to write about.
I'll see if I can get a few other pictures of the fish to help out with an ID.

Sounds very interesting, a side view pic and one pic on the mouth so we can see the teeth would be great.

Janne

I aggree, this sounds very exciting Did the fisherman only find a single specimen? Let's hope there are more of them so we can learn more about them.

-Haakon

A clear picture from the side would be great. A REALLY good picture of the mouth/teeth (so that we can even count the teeth and see the shape of each tooth) would be phenomenally helpful in identification, but that could be hard since the fish is pretty small. Many loricariids, such as Hypancistrus, Panaque, Leporacanthicus and L082, have very distinctive teeth. Not saying that it is any of them, but we could confirm or rule out Hypancistrus, for example, if we get a view of the teeth.

Nonetheless, this is one very interesting looking fish.

I got some more pictures of this beautiful pleco to share.

Regards,
Saul

That's the one.
So how about some info on it?Where did you get the one in the pictures?

I'm not an expert but I would like to share my humble opinion. They come from the xingu river and
they call it L46 white prince

I imported for some time from Belem and had a shipper that specialized in the rarest fish for the Japan market and they never came up with that one.I even got the red stripped anostomus at one time out of the xingu.
I have no reason to doubt the locality I was given.Also, there have not been any new shipments of zebras or Brazil plecos that came in when this fish appeared and it came from one of our fishermen when he came back off the river from the trip.
That looks like the fish, but localities are going to be a problem in figuring this one out.

As a fly fisherman, I sure don't go around telling anyone where my best fishing spots are on a river and I think that is true of any fishermen.

True, but I own the business in Peru and a whole crew of specialized fishermen work exclusively for us.Very different from the rest of the exporters in Iquitos so I do get exact information when I need or request it.

We are talking about 2 different rivers about 700 miles apart here in 2 different countries, so this is a little more than fudging on the part of a tributary or a couple of rivers a few miles apart.

I had orders for several rare and regular species of Apistogrammas and the customers wanted locality info so our apisto guy took the camera and shot the streams where each species was collected along with area markers that showed exactly where they were collected.

I really don't have any reason to question locality.Been doing this for a long time and info from the fishermen is not a problem for me, especially since I am the one who pays them to go exploring.

Finding more is what really matters. Only when enough have reach skilled breeders who can begin working out their aquarium care and breeding will it matter. I know that I for one would love to see a new species like that come far west of the Xingu mother load. I was being a bit facetious but what I said is usually true.