I did send pics to an expert and agreed he said it is M microstoma however he also said he would not guarantee it without seeing the fish in person right beside other species as they are almost impossible to tell apart.
E cat has settled in nicely
- Thread starter rudy
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I did send pics to an expert and agreed he said it is M microstoma however he also said he would not guarantee it without seeing the fish in person right beside other species as they are almost impossible to tell apart.
The most recent revision split the genus into 19 (!) species. Ten of the 19 can be seen on PCF: https://www.planetcatfish.com/common/genus.php?genus_id=46#1800
Precisely my experience is too that many (most?) of the 19 species are nearly impossible to tell apart from external features.
Neither have I seen or heard of any e-cat bigger than 12"-18" in captivity and the only 3-footer I saw was in that Japanese Osaka Aquarium or some such video.
My only try with them was limited to a couple of years. It grew to 6"-8". Got sick on our NY to FL move. Perished some months later in 2011.
Exactly bigger better! The Osaka aquarium thing is what I remember seeing a couple years ago with he huge micro stoma. Another one was of a guy who had a wall to ceiling tank with black posts, basically had sectioned off about half of his living room and had huge pacu and catfish. Halfway through the vid, he walks over to another room which had perhaps an eight foot tank with a huge microstoma. The good news is that it seems like the microstoma are not sucumbing to the electric organ discharge EOD failure and and live comfortably in aquaria.
The only person I know that is a hobbyist and not just a google pic I've seen of M. microstoma was Amidaii (Ben I think his name is) he was on Arofanatics and I think may have had an ID on here as well. Unrelated but same dude was one of the first to breed Pacman cats and has kept tons of truly impressive species. I'll post the pics of the bigger E-Cats I've got at home tonight if I remember but the big ones I've seen looked like Electricus.[/QUOTE]
Interested to see if you can find those pics and also links to amidae's e-cats. I have seen his pacmans and they sure were impressive.
Interested to see if you can find those pics and also links to amidae's e-cats. I have seen his pacmans and they sure were impressive.
Any feedback on this question above as well? Don't mean to get off topic but this relates to the M. electrics as well. Thanks to Rudy for opening up such an interesting discussion on e-cats through sharing pics of his leucistic cat.
Not sure what exactly is meant by bulbous but...
In general, males of many catfish species, e.g., RTC and other Pims, channel, flathead, bullhead, walking catfish, possibly those in Bagridae family, Claroteidae, woodcats, can be distinguished from females by having a higher ratio of head width to body width (bigger heads, slimmer bodies) versus females.
For this usually one needs to have a large group having both genders and then it is distinguishable. Seasoned fishermen can tell too.
Until I got a group of 10 RTCs, I couldn't tell males from females. Now it's mostly evident.
