i can tell the difference. in my situation however, the fish was not placed in a tank, but in a bag. hence i could not get a good look at it's jaws. the fish was also washed out, a bad move on my part that i failed to realise so. however this meant that i did not see the distinctive vittatus stripes. when i asked the lfs which sp it was, they showed me the order sheet provided by our country's main import/exporters. the sheet actually stated "Hydrocynus Goliath". i decided to trust the lfs and qian hu(the import/exporters), as they had the species name on the list etc, and the price was higher than labled vittatus sold by the lfs a couple of weeks ago. needless to say i am very disappointed with them, and will not be trusting them or doing business with them anytime soon.