Wow !
Firstly, thank you all for the input. Very interesting.
Secondly, as regards the "common names", I am Portuguese and in Portugal we usually identify fish by the latin names. So, for me, this is an H. carpintis. (period).
However, being this an internacional forum am knowing that in the US many people prefer (or only use) the common names, I used "Texas" (between " ") in the topic title just to narrow the ID to the "texas family" (if that exists...)
My idea was not to start a quarrel about common names...
Matt is correct, unless you have a collection point, it's impossible to tell for sure the variant. You are likely to get all kinds of guesses and looks like...but not the correct answer. Part of the reason your fish appears so dark is that it's being viewed/photographed against a white sand substrate. Carpinte are one of my faves...regardless of the flavor. Good luck with it.
Aquamojo,
You - and Matt- are right. I am likely to get all kind of guesses of what it looks more like and it´s totally impossible to know the variant not knowing the collection point (as I said earlier).
But this fish has always been this dark even when it was in Miguel´s bare bottom tank. So being truth that the white substract plays an important role in the darkness of fish (in general), this in particular has always been black with blue.
As I said, a bit different from all the other carpintis I have seen. But in my country we don´t have access to many locations ("escondido" and "vontehilo" have been imported in the past, but only a few times). That´s why I asked if this fish had the traits of any specific location I didn´t know. Not to pass it in the future as from location A or B - of course - but just to have an idea and improve my knowledge on the location traits.
Finally, lovely carpintis have been posted in this thread ! With all the diversity within the species, they all have something.
