Pseudoplatystoma corruscans
- Thread starter plausible
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on planet catfish they have this fish mislabelled. Look on fishbase for true pictures of a Pseudoplatystoma corruscans. I have some pics of adults on my computer at home, but I am at work until thursday so nothing til then. They are the largest species of tiger shovelnose catfish. They get over 6ft. and weigh more than 100 lbs in the wild. They have a more compressed head than P. fasciatum, and are generally a longer fish. They have spots instead of stripes and may have white striped verticle throughout the body. Fasciatum has black stripes with white stripes vertically, and a P. tigrinum has stripes that converge with no verticle white stripes.
Pic is really blurry. How big is he? Their patterns change a lot from babies to adults. To be definite probably need to wait till he's about 10-12" long. Does he have verticle white stripes? If so that would narrow it down to 2 species, if not that would narrow it down to one, but sometimes they don't develope these stripes till they are 6" or larger! If possible post a clearer pic. Looks like your cam was focused on the background. As for the eel, lol I am a catfish man myself, but it's definitely an eel. I would go look it up on fishbase.org. Just type in tire track eel or something and see what comes up. If you find the genus name you can search for that and it will bring up all the species under that genera, and look until you find the right species.
From your pics I have narrowed it down to fasciatum or corruscans. See the verticle white stripes inbetween the black blotches. I can't say for sure what species you have until the pattern is more developed they all have dark blotches like that until older. The pattern seperates more and if fasciatum will turn into stripes, and if tigrinum will stay spots. If I had to guess though I would say about 75% sure it's fasciatum. Only time will tell though. If fasciatum, good luck on it ever getting over 3-4' long, but if corruscans, could easily hit 4-5', maybe 6' in a big enough aquarium, and with enough time. Tigrinum doesn't have those verticle stripes so I'd be almost certain it's not that one. Give it a few months though.