Platydoras costatus "black"

[TalenT]

has anyone heard of/kept one of those? And if so are they in fact a black form of Platydoras costatus or a new species? (they were available on one of the LFS lists, no pics or other info, just the name).

[plesner]

I only know of one black species in that family. Could they be juvenile specimens of this one:

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/do ... o/37_f.htm

[TalenT]

come to think of it...i have a memory of once seeing a picture of a black Platydoras, think it was called P.dentatus or something like that...(hmmm... might be answering my own question here )

I cant possibly believe that they can mistake a "mother of snails" for a Platydoras costatus... but, well, stranger things have happened.

[S. Allen]

Platydoras dentatus is listed in Burgess' atlas of cafish, but the book has neither a picture nor a description on that species, so I did a google search, found it limited, fishindex lists it as a synonym of P. costatus, so does this german site http://www.zierfischverzeichnis.de/ordn ... status.htm . Fishbase is regarding it as a synonym of P. costatus as well http://www.fishbase.org/Nomenclature/Sy ... e=costatus

So it seems there's a bit of controversy as to whether it's a species at all... That said, in the cat-e-log there's a platydoras that's a dark brown, at the size you could mistake a psuedodoras for a platydoras, it wouldn't be dark black either most likely. who knows.

[TalenT]

i went through all my fish-books for the picture that i vaguely remembered, and i found it in the "baensch aquarium atlas photo index 1-5" on page 307, bottom right (next to p.costatus) on that photo it looks as if it is black on its back and sides with a blueish belly and...bright blue eyes?

what do you think, is it a photo of a p.dentatus or something else?

[Rusty]

Not sure what it is, but the same picture is on the bottom of page 356 in volume 3.

Rusty