PlanetCatfish.com

Recent trip to the Tapajós river, Brazil.

Rocky habitats of the middle Tapajós upstream of Itaituba. Green water!

Here we found:

. Very common.
. Not so common.
. Quite rare.

. Not so common.
. Pretty common.
. Very common.

. Not so common.
. Rare.
sp. Not sure which. Was of the ranunculus type with wide head.

. Not so common.
. Rare.
. Common.

Some of the diving gear.

Air compressor.
Air hose. The wire wrapped around is for a hand lamp. This tells them when the compressor is off, so they can surface, and also for light, if it's dark.
Divers out fishing about 4 m down.

The catch from a few dives.
Lots of L260. They sell for about US$1 each. I bought a nice male and female for my tank. $2 well spent, I think.
Big female L273. These were more expensive, at about $4 each.

More fishes, this time from a woody habitat.
. Very rare.
or similar.

Lasiancistrus face.
sp. Similar to A. dolichopterus type. Not sure which L number.
And if you're bored of loricariids ... , possibly similar to .

The Lower Tapajós about half way along after it widens out at Aveiro.

Awesome pics.

from a very small stream (no photos).
? From around flooded trees on the main channel.

?
?
.

Awesome photos, thank you for sharing!

I'd be interested to see what kind of non-catfish you've been catching.

I love these threads! Gives a small insight into the actual habitat of my favourite fish. If you don't mind and if the info is available to you, could you post any water parameters? I would be particularly interested in the water temp. Thanks for sharing, very interesting!

Fantastic thread Rupert!!!

Impressive..!!

Great thread and fantastic photos.

I do have a couple of questions that may answer a mystery I have been struggling with for some time.

I spawned and raised up a couple of clutches of a Peckoltia that I purchased in 2012 as "Iatuba Tiger Plecos" that were supposedly a new import and did not have an L number assigned to it. I had originally thought them to be the same as L38 but the fry had a very different pattern from the fry pictured in the cat-e-log and I no longer believe that they are L38.

Looking at your thread I now realize that Iatuba is probably a corrupted version of "Itaituba".

The fish you have labeled as L140 looks very similar to the "Itaituba" Tiger plecos I have. Only difference is that the banding on mine is a bit wider.

So here are my questions:
1. Are you very sure about the ID of the fish in the picture as L140? I ask because the fish pictured in the cat-e-log do not look very much like either the fish pictured in this thread or my fish.

2. Did you see a lot of variation in the L140 type fish? Were the bands wider and narrower or were they pretty close to each other in appearance.

Thanks,
Andy

Looks like a great gig you've got out there. Very jealous.

Great pictures looking forward to seeing some more.

backstreetgambler wrote:could you post any water parameters? I would be particularly interested in the water temp

Unfortunately my conductivity and temp meter packed up on me; batteries ran out unexpectedly. What I did measure was that the water surface of the slower moving lower Tapajós was 33C (also very soft, only 20 us or so). Upstream where the plecos were caught, the water ran faster, and it was also colder down a few metres near the bottom. I estimated the temp to be upper twenties. For the aquarium, I'd say about 28-30C is about right.

Narwhal72 wrote:Are you very sure about the ID of the fish in the picture as L140?

As far as I know, this is the only type fish from the Tapajós, and was the only one we found near Itaituba. If your fish look the same as this, and they really did come from Itaituba, then I would call them .

Narwhal72 wrote:Did you see a lot of variation in the L140 type fish?

Yes, but the distinctive thing about them was the very yellow colouration, but unfortunately the ones I photographed were a bit washed out. Here's another below. Look at the colour of the mouth. Also the banding will tend to get narrower as the fish gets older, I think.

Silurus wrote:I'd be interested to see what kind of non-catfish you've been catching.

As you know photography in the field is difficult and very time consuming. I couldn't photograph everything, so I prioritised the catfishes. Here's a few more pics. Let me know if there's anything in particular you are interested in.



?

?
?

? Only got one of these. Appears rare.
. Found quite a few of these. Relatively easy to collect.
Along with the , both of these guys were caught hiding among mats of floating grasses in shallow water (as pictured earlier). Water was really warm here, maybe 35C.

? Found together with in crevices in rocks/wood (below).

The water was very warm here, over 33C where the Peckoltia L140 were found.

The holes the Peckoltia L140 were residing in. The "rock" was very soft here, more like hard mud, so I think they actually dug the holes themselves. They were about 2" wide and up to 12" deep.

Finally, some non-catfishes.

Monocirrhus.
Gymnorhamphichthys.
Nice Apistogramma cf. agassizi.

Colomesus.
Little Crenicichla.
Hoplias.