Your fish is definitely a curu unless there's a subspecies that has some differences that we don't know about. Like maybe getting larger. I would have thought yours was quite a bit smaller than 7 inches if I had to guess cause from what I've seen they lose that pattern when larger, or I use other body features such as head size to compare. Yours looks like a small 3-4 inch baby lol. But that can be a variant thing, size can be affected by variants too. Now those larger ones, look curu to me still, with the blunt heads. As mentioned already, curus have been said to reach 30". And they're heavy bodied fish. For some reason no one has kept one long enough it seems and kept up with updates to see if they reach this size in aquaria, the largest one I've read of was 17" when it passed. And it wasn't to old, only a couple years. That one flipped over, to me, has the u shape fold which would also indicate curu, malas even at larger sizes, folds come much closer than that. They look to be curu imo as well. The best way to illustrate the folds is a pic fugupuff has maybe he can post it here, it shows a mala over a australis over a lac. I feel the folds are pretty easy to distinguish apart, and even so lacs and curus look different to confuse with one another and aimaras look different but if that fails they have the opercular membrane to tell apart from others. Malas are said to be a number of undescribed species so that's another conversation, but are still pretty easy to distinguish imo nonetheless. Australis tend to look like malas with the folds being a little bit more spread apart and have a blunt head. As already said wolves are generally solitary. Aimaras are said to be aggressive because in the wild they live in rivers where food isn't so abundant due to the harsh conditions so they keep each other far apart by claiming territories. Curus are supposed to be harder to comm with their cousins in specific compared to their cousins comm with one another, if you get me? Basically curus are more aggressive towards each other and other wolfs in comparison to say a mala being not so aggressive towards other wolves. Fugupuff who keeps different specimens regularly to sell, says he has more trouble with them even compared to aimara. Also lacs have very compressed heads similar to aimara. Sorry I'm answering as I read through on another tab. Like he said pores are another way to distinguish wolves, curus have them in groups where as the rest of the wolves have one at a time. Different so curus tend to have a different varying number of pores on the under jaw. Lacs are said to reach the same sizes as aimara 3-4 feet. Aimaras are easy because of their looks, or as I stated they have the opercular membrane which the other species lack. On amapa variants this may be hard to see but what lac variant gets that dark? We've yet to see one. Curus have different body builds being much stockier than the rest of the wolves imo, their patterns are different from all others, they look different from the other species completely, they're the oddballs of the wolves imo looking completely different. Lacs are generally docile from everything I've read. Aimaras are the most territorial, then it'd depend on the specific specimens for the rest of the species if you ask me. I will look for some pics and see if they show the pores on my mala. Don't think anyone who's kept an aimara has gathered the courage to take them out and take such pictures. You gain a respect for wolves when you keep them, they can inflict serious damage fast without much effort. As for the coloration thing, if you like I can post pictures of different patterns and colorations my curu has that I've gotten pictures of overtime, think it's time I update their thread.. But many variables go into the patterns and coloration of them such as variant, mood, environment, etc. Let me know if you would like me to upload pictures showing the different patterns they may have of the curu and mala. And I will look for the pictures of the under jaws of two malas I had taken. Sorry for the long post, I missed a bit while in school huh? Lol. I'd like to see what DB and Wes think. They've seen lots, and their knowledge exceeds mine.
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