PlanetCatfish.com

Not sure if this is the right place, so please move it if it isn't.

I stumbled across this Genus whilst searching 'Hoplo'. Never heard of it before but thought it looked quite interesting so had a bit more of a look around and whilst the cat-e-log only lists one species other sources such as ITIS list three. Is this something that could be updated in the cat-e-log?

I'd estimat that there are around 1000 species of catfish that "could be added if we wanted to". This is one example of that. I'm guessing it's not exactly a fish like to be found in the hobby. Most banjo cats are in the Bunocephalus and Psuedobunocephalus.

Seeing as it's only two, I can add them later on today, I think.

I'm moving this to "Cat-eLog issues", as it's not really about "Taxonomy & Science News"...

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Mats

MatsP wrote:
I'm moving this to "Cat-eLog issues", as it's not really about "Taxonomy & Science News"...

Mats

I thought that might be the case!

MatsP wrote:I'd estimat that there are around 1000 species of catfish that "could be added if we wanted to".
Mats

I am aware, of course, that you all have limitations for time etc. but this suggests that you choose not to add some species. I assumed that the cat-e-log was intended to be a complete reference for 'catfish'. Am I mistaken?

I think there are four:

Hoplomyzon sexpapilostoma-Taphorn & Marrero,1990

Hoplomyzon papillatus-Stewart,1985

Hoplomyzon megistrus-Orces,1961

-Myers,1942

Birger

I am aware, of course, that you all have limitations for time etc. but this suggests that you choose not to add some species. I assumed that the cat-e-log was intended to be a complete reference for 'catfish'. Am I mistaken?

For awhile we shied away from adding a species without an image...now that we do have so many images in the Cat-eLog and have most Genera with some sort of picture we can now fill in the blanks hoping images will follow for the ones we do not have...but it does all take time.

Birger

We do indeed "choose" what species we add and when. It is a combination of:
1. Requests.
2. Someone sending in new images for a species we don't have.
3. (when it comes to me) finding that a genus that hasn't got all described species.

I don't think we'll ever get to 100% of all known catfish. We currently have 3063 species (including undescribed ones).
According to this:
http://research.calacademy.org/redirect ... atmain.asp
there are 3500 currently valid species of catfish. But we currently have 844 undescribed species. 3500 - 3063 = 437. 437 + 844 = 1281.

Accoerding to fishbase, it looks like it should be Ernstichthys megistus, not Hoplomyzon megistus.

Assuming it's "no work at all" to find that a species "exists but isn't in the cat-elog", then it takes about 5 minutes to add a new species and add some very basic data. Adding 1200 species would take 6000 minutes = 100 hours = 12.5 days of 8 hours per day. Of course, I don't spend 8 hours per day on PC. It's more like 8 hours per week, and much of that time is spent on other things than adding new species - much of what I do is update the pages that me, Jools, Birger and others use to add species, images, move/rename species and images, etc.

I recently found the reason why if you do a clog-entry with a genus , it doesn't show a picture - it took a couple of hours to figure out what was wrong, and 15 seconds to type in the right thing once I knew what was wrong... I think it may still be broken on the site, since Jools will have to upload it to the "real" site.

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Mats

I assumed that the cat-e-log was intended to be a complete reference for 'catfish'. Am I mistaken?

This is really a good question.

As far as I can tell it already is the most complete catfish resource in the world. As Birger noted, there really is a "tipping point" to adding batches of new species. Adding 20 members of a genus for which we have no photos and no captive care information would not really help many people (fishbase, for example, does that already and is not really a useful site to most aquarists).

I think most would also agree that this would be a less valuable use of everyone's time than writing new articles for Shane's World, adding new photos and data to existing spp the cat-elog, writing the new COTM, answering questions in the forum, etc. I think this is what Mats is trying to convey above with his word problems

That said, if one or more members of a new genus start turning up in the hobby it becomes possible to show photos and start adding some care information. Get a handful of these entered with pics and data and suddenly it is worthwhile to just add the remaining members of the genus.

I hope that makes sense.

-Shane

Ok, the other two species of Hoplomyzon are now added.

I also, because I'm that way, made a spreadsheet of what's missing - it's in Google docs:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... Gt2aXN4Qnc


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Mats

Accoerding to fishbase, it looks like it should be Ernstichthys megistus, not Hoplomyzon megistus.

Yep, COF as well

Birger

Mats,
That is a pretty useful table for seeing where the biggest "gaps" are. Can you put it in a posting?

-Shane

We're missign Ernstichthys anduzei too, so I'm adding that too. (And ten other species - not sure which ones).

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Mats

Is this resolved now?

If you find other small groups that you feel we should add to the Cat-eLog, please feel free to raise it in "Cat-eLog data issues".

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Mats

@ Shane - Yes, thanks Shane it makes perfect sense. I just thought that in this case as one species was already in the cat-e-log it was probably worth adding the missing few.

@ Mats - As far as I am concerned, yes resolved. Thanks, and as I've said before the time and effort you guys put into the website is much appreciated.