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Hello all. A few months ago I bought what the local fish store called a tiger shovelnose for 35 dollars. It was 3'' then and its 7'' now. It is brown with spots instead of stripes and it is dark. The spots go from the fins to the tail and as long as the sides of the body. It does sort of have a shovelnose. Then today I bought another 3''er who looks the same but has both stripes and spots. What do you think?? Are they actully tsn?? If you have one that sounds like my descripiton please share some pics. I will get some pics hopefully by the weekend.
I am really hoping that they are tsns... they eat shrimp like pigs.

There are eight species of , which includes the tiger shovelnose and its look-alikes. Pictures would be greatly helpful.

is the only species without stripes at all, if I'm not mistaken. The other species of Pseudoplatystoma have some combination of stripes/reticulations and spots. Also, juveniles very typically look different from adults.

TigerShovelnoseman wrote:Hello all. A few months ago I bought what the local fish store called a tiger shovelnose for 35 dollars. It was 3'' then and its 7'' now. It is brown with spots instead of stripes and it is dark. The spots go from the fins to the tail and as long as the sides of the body. It does sort of have a shovelnose. Then today I bought another 3''er who looks the same but has both stripes and spots. What do you think?? Are they actully tsn?? If you have one that sounds like my descripiton please share some pics. I will get some pics hopefully by the weekend.
I am really hoping that they are tsns... they eat shrimp like pigs.

Pictures of your shovelnoses would be helpful. Otherwise it all turns to speculation.

I agree with both of the previous posts:
- There are certainly several different species of "shovelnose looking fish".
- It is very difficult to describe enough detail to give a distinct ID from just words - photos do this MUCH better.

Further to that, there are a few genera that look similar to Pseudoplatystoma.

--
Mats

I'll try to have pics tonight or tommrow.

Just noting that if the fish in question are the same as in your avatar pic, they appear to be hybrids.
-Shane

I'm going to try and have pics tonight. No the tsn in my avatar is really a tiger shovelnose.

No the tsn in my avatar is really a tiger shovelnose.

Well, the pic is small and my eyes are not what they used to be. Could you post it at a larger size?
-Shane

his avatar is one of those misshaped roundheaded TSN's with a hunched spine

you see that often; when a TSN suffers from stunted growth due to being kept in a tiny tank, it developes a rounded head with a bent down horselike headshape instead of a flat wide duckbeaklike headshape; it also developes a hunchbacked spine, sometimes severe, most often just a slight bend

this poor little creature got an extreme case of "horse head nose" (i'm making up the name, but you'll get it)


this one also shows the bending down of the headprofile


this one also has the mouth pointing downwards


a healthy wellshaped TSN should look like this:

a very slim fish that looks like a speeddemon with the beak pointed forwards and the lower jaw visible

it will keep the shape when properly housed


even huge TSNs have a straight head and a flat back without a bend or hump as seen here

you see that often; when a TSN suffers from stunted growth due to being kept in a tiny tank, it developes a rounded head with a bent down horselike headshape instead of a flat wide duckbeaklike headshape; it also developes a hunchbacked spine, sometimes severe, most often just a slight bend

This might be the problem as I have only ever seen this fish in the wild.
-Shane

Wow those poor tiger shovelnoses with the bent spines just make me sad... why would people keep them in such small tanks?? I put my 3''ers in a 150 so they can grow right.
Shane here is a better pic of that tiger shovelnose for you:



P.S I am sorry for the delay in pics for iding my tsn's Iv'e been very busy and will get them done today.

sorry for the delay but here are the pics....... sorry for shitty pics.....

I'd say that's a hybrid but with the Cat-elog out of work at the moment I don't dare to say for sure.
Probably half tiger shovelnose but what it has else in it I don't know. The body shape and the pattern however might indicate a mix with some of the really huge ones.

Pseudoplatystoma x Leiarius is my best guess
these 2 have known to be mixed (artificially) as hybrids