Tues June 6th Dani (guide, driver, and expert net caster) and I headed about an hour west of Panama City, over the Bridge to the Americas to explore collecting possibilities in the Rio Chorrera.
Because it is just the beginning of the rainy season water is still low, but is moving must faster than the rivers I’ve been collecting over the last few months.
The color of the water is muddy, pH has dropped lower than it has been, down to what my eyes perceive as @ 7.4, and nitrate is slightly elevated. Left tube is pH ( 7.4 ) right tube nitrate (closing in on 5 ppm ).
We started collecting below the waterfall, in the countercurrent zone, and in open spots the rapids.
In this area, each cast seemed to pull up at least one large Pleco.
These Plecos are listed in my field guide (Peces de las Aguas Continentales de Costa Rica), by Bussing, as Hypostomus panamensus, and were easily longer than the 12" diameter (30 cm) opening of my 5 gallon buck
They were too large to keep,
Later we tried netting in the area above the waterfall, and only caught small tetras, and the net kept getting snagged on sunken branches, so we moved on.
On the way back, passing over the Rio Pedro Miguel, and so far empty handed, we climbed down the steep embankment to see if anything had changed.
In stead of the tetras, and catfish caught back in March, different, much larger tetras were the most common now, they were minimally 4 inches and larger, up to almost 8".
These tetras have a very unique long jaw line compared to the normal jaw formation of most tetras in Panama, leading me to believe they may be Bramocharax bransfordii, (AKA Astyanax) known commonly as the long jaw Tetra, or here in Panama as Sardina picuda.
