PlanetCatfish.com

• Mariaca Villavicencio, A. L. (2018). Aspectos de ecología trófica de la nutria gigante (Pteronura brasiliensis) y su interacción con la actividad pesquera en la estrella fluvial de Inírida, Guainía-Colombia. Tesis, Maestría en conservación y uso de biodiversidad. https://repository.javeriana.edu.co/handle/10554/34365

bekateen wrote: ↑24 Feb 2021, 01:55P.S., I submitted a correction to Fishbase.se, to ask them to remove this photo from M. poecilus. Their other photo is accurate. Hopefully this is corrected soon.

• They all have the dark wood-grained base color.
• They all have a subdorsal brown saddle which is solid or nearly so - I don't recall that being true in the past about all of these, so I suspect as I said elsewhere that the color is filling in as they grow.
• They all have similar color patterns on the tail - essentially a solid but not too thick dark 3-shaped band through the approximate middle of the tail, followed by a heavily spotted (dark but not sold brown) coloration in the area posterior to the solid dark band. Visually, it looks like two bands following the contour of the tail margin, with the more-posterior band being not as solid. (very visible in the video at the 40-44 sec mark)
• They all have the peculiar trait of a sold brown mid-body longitudinal line connecting the brown head pigmentation to the brown subdorsal saddle, as shown here: download/file.php?id=26473&mode=view. They are not the only fish in the group with this trait, but they have it very well defined. It's visible in the video at 32 seconds.

bekateen wrote: ↑18 Dec 2020, 21:20
On a whim, I did two things today.

• Second, I picked out one of my very fat female wood-grained fish and took photos in front of a window for natural lighting, both with and without the overhead fluorecent lighting on.

This female is 50 mm SL. Note that this fish has the pale blemish in the middle of the subdorsal saddle. She also has a brown bridge connecting the subadipose and caudal saddles; I didn't recall having any fish with that feature, but going back to the first post in this thread, I see this picture (fourth picture below). Comparing the contours of the color patterns on this fat female and that fish at time of purchase, it's appears that the fat female in this post is the same fish as in that first photograph! If that's true, then her color pattern really did change with growth (no surprise I suppose, but it's cool to observe)... I need to go back and look at the other specimens. And wow, what a difference food makes!

One other thing about her is that beside the rotund belly, which would indicate female, her genital area surrounding the genital papilla is swollen like a balloon (circled in fifth photo below), in the same way that I observed on my Panaqolus species - there's a visible bump of about 4mm diameter and 1mm height around the genital papilla. I haven't checked the males yet, but I doubt they have that swelling.

Also, keep in mind that these woodgrained fish are my small fish. All the woodgrained fish are about the same size. The yellow-bodied fish were as large as 65mm when I purchased them. I don't know if they've grown since, but maybe? Regarding the possibility that the yellow fish are males and these woodgrained fish are all females, I have woodgrained fish that are thin. That in itself doesn't say much, so I'm waiting to see if any yellow fish plump out like this. So far, one or two of the larger yellow fish are slightly rounded more than others, but none so rotund as these little fish. So the sex dimorphism vs two species is not fully settled yet in my mind.

bekateen wrote: ↑08 Mar 2021, 02:32 Great cave there!

1. I was REALLY hoping for the leucistic fish or something resembling
   Microglanis poecilus
   , but none were available.
2. I found 4-5 more specimens which shared that odd trait of an intact brown bridge which splits the pale nuchal band in half mid-sagittally.
3. I picked up a few fish with the feature of the subdorsal saddle broken along its posterior margin with a pale spot, which is then split in a postero-ventral diagonal line; one of these is large, well over 50 mm SL.
4. I picked up one or two very large specimens of the classic pale yellow colored "iheringi" pattern, because of their large size (over 60mm SL). I believe all of my current fish with this color pattern are big males. Maybe it's sexually dimorphic trait, but I bought more wild-caught fish of the same size, hoping they might be underfed females with the same bright yellow color pattern.
5. I picked up a few thin long wood-grained specimens, all over 50mm SL. I'm hoping these will be males, but so far all of my larger wood-grained fish are (I believe) females. Maybe these are just thin females also - time will tell.
6. I picked up about 4 very small fish (less than or equal to 25mm SL). These are mostly dark woodgrain colored, but some had the broken subdorsal saddles, like a few from my previous purchase of fish. If these small fish are a different species, I wanted to add to that group.

bekateen wrote: ↑09 Mar 2021, 02:05 In total, I'm up to 58 bumblebees.

MarcW wrote: ↑09 Mar 2021, 15:56Looking good Eric, lets hope the owner of that store doesn't keep thinking, these Microglanis are top sellers, I'd better get more in, or you may need to start filling sinks, and baths to keep them in!

fishguy1978 wrote: ↑09 Mar 2021, 17:37And I thought a group of 5-6 would be good

Jools wrote: ↑09 Mar 2021, 19:1858? That's a hive!
Jools

• the anterior edge is roughly vertical, and the posterior edge is angled, not vertical. (Red)
• there is a pale irregular spot in the middle of the saddle. (Blue)
• there is a dark line crossing through both the pale spot and the posterior edge of the saddle. (Green)

bekateen wrote: ↑22 May 2021, 04:48 Did a check on the fish today. Biggest fish was pushing 70mm SL. Still a bit shocked they haven't spawned yet.