What is a thunder line royal pleco?

[bekateen]

Hi all,

Someone I know is considering buying 3 thunder line royal plecos. I found reference to them in TFH as L027c. But I don't find that here.

Does anybody know about these? What are they?

Thanks, Eric

[Jools]

Some

Panaque

guru may well correct me, but I think it is

Panaque armbrusteri

(my doubt is that it may alternatively be the Araguia fish) but the name derives from the patterning which is meant to be like forked lightning. This comes from what these fishes were sold as in Japan, I think Thunder is one, and Platinum is another "common" name for different Panaque.

e.g. http://www.planetcatfish.com/common/ima ... ge_id=7117

Jools

[bekateen]

Thanks, Jools. I knew L027 was armbrusteri. I was trying to figure out how L027c differed from L027. That's okay.

http://www.tfhmagazine.com/details/arti ... rticle.htm

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

L027 was introduced from aquarium exports from an exporter in Belem if memory serves. Aqualog invented L027a,b,c and I think d to represent the Brazilian different species that looked like Panaque nigrolineatus- we don't use them anymore here in an attempt to reduce usage. I disagree with the TFH article which calls them colour forms, I think they will all end up being different species.

Jools

[bekateen]

Thanks, Jools.

Cheers, Eric

[matthewfaulkner]

I'd agree with what Jools has already said. If the common name includes 'thunder' then it usually means P. armbrusteri from the rio Tapajos, but 'gold' or 'goldline' is often incorporated as well, which is troublesome because it's also used for the rio Araguaia populations.

L027a =

Panaque cf_armbrusteri`tocantins`

. I assume that Tocantins got the [a] designation because it was the population first assigned the L027 number by DATZ in 1989. The Western side of the hobby doesn't seem to have a common name for these. The Eastern side tends to call them 'orange' or 'wood'. Very occasionally

Panaque cf_nigrolineatus

aka L330, is called L027a, I don't know where this originated from, but I remember an unusual individual from the Aquarama event in Singapore was labelled as this.

L027b and LDA063 =

Panaque cf_armbrusteri`xingu`

. These are the most commonly found 'species' of the armbrsuteri group, fairly consistently called 'platinum'. In the East the term 'satan' is sometimes used, my guess is that it refers to the red fin colouration seen in juveniles.

L027c =

Panaque cf_armbrusteri`araguaia`

. This is where the 'gold' comes from, often called 'goldline'. I believe there are nigrolineatus type and armbrusteri type species within this group. Teeth size and number varies a lot.

L027d and LDA077 =

Panaque armbrusteri

. The 'thunder' bunch. Sometimes a specific tributary/area is added such as the Jamanxim, Teles Pires or Jatoba.

[bekateen]

Thanks, Matthew. Yeah, the seller has "thunder line" royal plecos - not just thunder, but no gold in the name. I'm going to guess they meant gold line.

I'll pass this along to my friend. He was under the impression that these were super rare. hopefully this info is enough for him to make up his mind.

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

雷 (かみなり) is a general term which in Japanese refers to both lightning, the flash of light seen, as well as thunder, the sound it makes. Thus you can use it in both contexts such as:

「雷が鳴った」 ("Thunder echoed")
「雷が落ちた」 ("Lightning struck")

Jools