PlanetCatfish.com

Yep, I got them!!
so now the last of the non-Burundi Tangies will go on the move.

My tank is too crowded anyway, probably will be for ever, I guess.
But we went to Germany and I spotted 5 ABSOLUTELY gorgeous true S petricola's (2 males, 3 females) wich were sold as "S polli".
the lady on the counter messed up and so I had to pay for only 4 of them.
Then later that evening Rene GAVE me his sole Burundi-male as a present......

They look like carboncopies of the true, bigger petricola from the cat-e-log!

And now you all may envy me!


btw Phyllonemus STILL holding, seems like the eggs turned to babies, and once I sell the remaining few F1 baby Lophio's I have room to spawn the true S polli; the brown ones.....they're getting frisky......creating a tiny Lake Tanganyika-catfish heaven over here

one does ones best

SG_Eurystomus wrote:And now you all may envy me!

You mean now you don't have to envy ME!

Now let's see you spawn them. That would really be something!

Dinyar

C'mon Barbie! I was being NICE to Sid! If I wasn't, I would merely have been polite.

(Now does that make it two parades I've rained on?)

Dinyar

Maybe THAT's why it turned out into a big mess-up (wich I admit took some doing from me) when we COULD have met, but missed it altogether.

It's the Gods, Dinyar! or Fate, Karma according to one's believe....
They try to save planet earth and they're keeping us separate for a very good reason (wich will be known in the future as "The Great Catfish war pt I & II" )


btw I've got a nice hat, so I CAN be rained upon, no worries.
(HEY! this is HOLLAND we're talking about. If it wasn't so close to the North Pole -same northern latitude as the center of the Hudson Bay in Canada- you could grow a nice rainforest here, with all that wetness....)

BTW Dinyar
what would you make of these?
they're from Tanzania and some are passing the 6" mark.....








Giant petricola's? or something else?
They're from Vatoelvis' site and he took the pix in an LFS.....

These large "petricolas" are what I have called in my overview S. "Petricola Big". I would consider them as a yet undescribed species within the S.petricola-group. You can differ them from the other two petricola-forms by the lack of a complete black triangle in the dorsal fin. They own there a more or less margin, but not a complete triangle.

Erwin

SG_Eurystomus wrote:Maybe THAT's why it turned out into a big mess-up (wich I admit took some doing from me) when we COULD have met, but missed it altogether.

It's the Gods, Dinyar! or Fate, Karma according to one's believe....
They try to save planet earth and they're keeping us separate for a very good reason (wich will be known in the future as "The Great Catfish war pt I & II" )

I think fondly of "Sid" much as one might an old , so can't help "noodling" him at times. All in good fun, as I'm sure Sid understands.

As for not getting to meet when I was recently in the Netherlands, I suspect the real reason was that "Sid" just wanted to preserve his "Flying Dutchman" mystique.

Dinyar

Erwin wrote:These large "petricolas" are what I have called in my overview S. "Petricola Big". I would consider them as a yet undescribed species within the S.petricola-group.

Yes, I agree with Erwin. Some have called them "petricola giant", in distinction to "petricola dwarf". Photos of mine (I think the same fish, but with these "petri complex" specimens, one can never be sure) are in the Catelog as "Synodontis sp.(6)".

Erwin, I don't understand what you mean when you say:

Erwin wrote:You can differ[entiate] them from the other two petricola-forms by the lack of a complete black triangle in the dorsal fin. They own there a more or less margin, but not a complete triangle.

Can you explain again, please?

Dinyar

I think what Erwin meant to say was that these fish lack a complete darkening of the fins. If you look at the front ends of the dorsal and pectoral fins, they are not entirely black, hence the "lack of a complete black triangle".

Understood, thanks Silurus. I hadn't noticed that before, but after reading this, I notice it in my "giant" as well.

Overall, I count at least FIVE species in "Syndontis petricola": "dwarf", "giant", "brown panther", "long adipose" and the type species.

Dinyar

impressive!

are you sure you want to put the Brown Panthers in with petricola? that would make them the only ones with reddish eyes and a black dorsal spine....

They seem a bit more "polli-related" to me, but YMMV

SG_Eurystomus wrote:are you sure you want to put the Brown Panthers in with petricola? that would make them the only ones with reddish eyes and a black dorsal spine....

They seem a bit more "polli-related" to me, but YMMV

We have two and watch them every day. Admittedly, they seem to fall somewhere between petricola and polli, but there is a lot about them that reminds me more of petricola. First, their body shape is lean like petricola; second, the dentition is closer to petricola; and third, they love veggies like petricola (polli won't touch them).

BTW, I suspect there are more than five species in petricola. As I think you (Sid) also mentioned some time ago, there are two varieties of dwarf. And we have a fish that is halfway in size between dwarf and type petricola, dark greenish-brown base coloration and no white fin edging. My hunch would be that there's more variation out there than just what I've seen.

Dinyar

Heok Hee was right with the expression of my thoughts.

I have a problem with the new(?) common names in this group. For instance, are the "Brown Panther" what I have called S. cf. polli from Zambia? Is there any publication what shows all these varieties?

Erwin

I spoke with Rene Kruter last Saturday, and between him, Dinyar, Rusty, me and others there's not even near enough knowledge to cover the complete confusion that's rapidly arising on the "wide mouthed Tanganyika Syno's" (the polli/petricola/dhonti/tanganicae group).....

Unfortunately there's currently no scientist doing a thorough investigation on that "speciesflock" (if I may call it that, it seems those Syno's are doing what "Haplochromis" did in Lake Victoria...), and there's no cash, time and someone nutty enough to spend years and years near the Lake, catching and cataloging those elusive cats.

All the known guys (and probably a lot of unknowns too) are doing their stuff on cichlids, but few are interested in the catfishes, except us of course.

I have this hunch that -for example- the Tanganyikan Chrysichthys- species and the "Synodontis multipunctatus-varieties/subspecies/species?" might turn out to be a similar ball of confusion.......

Erwin wrote:I have a problem with the new(?) common names in this group.

Let's find better ones then. I am not committed to these. I was just trying to find words to explain myself.

Erwin wrote:For instance, are the "Brown Panther" what I have called S. cf. polli from Zambia?

No.

Erwin wrote:Is there any publication what shows all these varieties?

AFAIK, only yours comes close!

Dinyar