PlanetCatfish.com

POP QUIZ!! well not really, but just wanted to see what peoples thoughts were on this subject.
L411 monte dourado And L260 queen arabesque

The only details I can really find to tell me the difference is on Planetcatfish, which states, L411 has EVEN black & white patterning, and L260 has a thicker black pattern than white, also the adult size of L260 is only 3.5" and L411 is 5.1"

Now call me stupid, which Im sure you will, lol, but for MANY other fish this would simply be a regional variant?

L411 is only named Monte Dourado because thats the town/city that exported them first (I think...)
Also the Rio Tapajós and the Rio Jari are connected, even if VERY VERY VERY indirectly. So it wouldn't take a giant leap of faith to say the fish could have migrated/distributed themselves over that distance.

I have seen both 'species' at the same time, although not directly next to each other in a tank. I have tried to study pictures online but L411 is often incorrectly sold as L260, so there is no guarantee what I am looking at is even L260 and visa-versa.

I am no plec expert, and I'm not trying to be. I just wondered what other peoples thoughts were on this, IF anyone else has even considered it... I do have a tenancy to think about stupid things like this, and I was lying in bed awake last night thinking about it... I need a new hobby lol

So food for thought I think, and something to mull over while sitting down on this drab sunday evening dreading having to get up in the dark, wet and cold for work tomorrow morning.

Obviously depends on your definition of "regional variant" and "different species". Most of what we call species could also be called regional variant - Horse = regional variant of Zebra (or the other way around, depending on which you believe came first/is most important/whatever), same with Alligator/Crocodile, Indian vs. African Elephant, etc. Certainly, all the speciess of finches that led Darwin to come up with the theory of evolution could easily be called "regional variants".

Neither L260, not L411 are technically species in the strict meaning, since no scientist has described them yet...

Rio Jari and Tapajos aren't what I'd call "connected" - the Amazon, at that point, is a couple of miles wide (approx 3km), and it's over 100 miles up the Amazon to Tapajos (rough estimate on my map is about 250km/160 miles). Whilst for Brown trout distributionm that's not at all far apart (after all, brown trout lives over most of Europe), when it comes to plecos, it is.

If you take away the body pattern, my bet would be that it's hard to distinguish ANY of the . So would this mean that L129 (which is described under the name ) and are the same species too? After all, they can breed together and form fertile offspring [not 100% sure about that particular variation, but certainly both L129 has been crossed with Amazon species of Hypancistrus, and several Amazon species have been crossed with each other], so according to THAT principle of "what is a species" they are indeed the same species.

If just going by the fact that they "look almost the same", we could conclude that Green Neons and regular Neons, are the same species, since they are only a tad different in colour.

The same argument can be made with a lot of different species. They are defined as species because some scientist has written a paper defining them as species, and no other scientist has written a paper to argue against it.

And if by calling them regional variants and the based on the fact that they probably will breed and produce fertile offspring that they therofore are OK to breed together, then I'd say this is not recommended - even if in the future someone decides they ARE the same species, I'd suggest they should not be bred together, as they cleaarly look different when adult. Keeping bloodlines pure is the only way to have any idea of what's what in the future.

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Mats

Thanks for the reply Mats, I suppose it true, species and variants are very muddled, and as you say its simply one person saying its a species and thats it.

Thanks for your input

species and variants are very muddled, and as you say its simply one person saying its a species and thats it.

It's a little more complicated than that. Over 250 years of evolutionary theory has gone into thinking about this subject.

These fishes are undescribed, so in absence of any scientific hypotheses, aquarists must take an educated guess. These fish come from different places and look superficially different, much like other "real", described species. Therefore, a precautionary approach should apply here.