My apologies for the quality of the photos. Camera was acting up.
I originally thought it was Sturisoma until I obtained a Sturisoma panamense and I realized it could not be a Sturisoma at all. When I consulted Planetcatfish.com, my first thought was it could be Rineloricaria but when I looked into the articles, I was stumped by what species mine could be.
So far, here are the findings of the Planetcatfish members...
Silurus: His thought at first glance was Sturisoma but I needed the exact ID.
Raph: He bet on Rineloricaria parva. This was my first thought too when I consulted their site. He added that unless you know this plec was obtained from Paraguay-Parana-La Plata system, it couldn't be Rineloricaria parva. In reference to the last pic shown below, he pointed it as Rineloricaria because of the "presence of predorsal keels and postorbital notches". "Nevertheless, this color pattern on the snout is very common, so, it is almost impossible to identify it at the specific level without locality stated."
Apistomaster: He vouched for Sturisoma as well.
Bas Pels: "Too bad we don't see the whole fish. The front end of a (my) sturiosoma tail (not the fin, the biodypart behind the anal fin) is flattened, top-down, while it is much more rounded in Rhineloricaria.
I think we can see part of this in the pic, and it seems to be flattened, not rounded"
In response to his post, the plec does have a flattened "biodypart". Also, this response was because I showed only the last photo shown below as I was unable to start the imageshack.us until I was able to upload more a few hours later.
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His second response was how it behaves.."Does it lay in (under) the sand, or sit on stones?"
In response to this one, I don't use sand however it tends to slack (okay, sit lazily) on the gravel under driftwoods and even "perch" itself on a driftwood branch and small stones. It is quite a very active plec as well.
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Janne: "I think like Raph, this is a Rineloricaria species and I would say it's a female too. Which species is hard to determine from this picture but maybe one of these; Rineloricaria parva, Rineloricaria eigenmanni, Rineloricaria sp`pantanal`.
There are many species or localities of the same species of Rineloricaria which make them very difficult to identify."
After digging again all over, Rineloricaria sp. 'pantanal' is the closest I could match followed by Rineloricaria parva although this still stumped me.
I originally thought it was Sturisoma until I obtained a Sturisoma panamense and I realized it could not be a Sturisoma at all. When I consulted Planetcatfish.com, my first thought was it could be Rineloricaria but when I looked into the articles, I was stumped by what species mine could be.
So far, here are the findings of the Planetcatfish members...
Silurus: His thought at first glance was Sturisoma but I needed the exact ID.
Raph: He bet on Rineloricaria parva. This was my first thought too when I consulted their site. He added that unless you know this plec was obtained from Paraguay-Parana-La Plata system, it couldn't be Rineloricaria parva. In reference to the last pic shown below, he pointed it as Rineloricaria because of the "presence of predorsal keels and postorbital notches". "Nevertheless, this color pattern on the snout is very common, so, it is almost impossible to identify it at the specific level without locality stated."
Apistomaster: He vouched for Sturisoma as well.
Bas Pels: "Too bad we don't see the whole fish. The front end of a (my) sturiosoma tail (not the fin, the biodypart behind the anal fin) is flattened, top-down, while it is much more rounded in Rhineloricaria.
I think we can see part of this in the pic, and it seems to be flattened, not rounded"
In response to his post, the plec does have a flattened "biodypart". Also, this response was because I showed only the last photo shown below as I was unable to start the imageshack.us until I was able to upload more a few hours later.
---------
His second response was how it behaves.."Does it lay in (under) the sand, or sit on stones?"
In response to this one, I don't use sand however it tends to slack (okay, sit lazily) on the gravel under driftwoods and even "perch" itself on a driftwood branch and small stones. It is quite a very active plec as well.
---------
Janne: "I think like Raph, this is a Rineloricaria species and I would say it's a female too. Which species is hard to determine from this picture but maybe one of these; Rineloricaria parva, Rineloricaria eigenmanni, Rineloricaria sp`pantanal`.
There are many species or localities of the same species of Rineloricaria which make them very difficult to identify."
After digging again all over, Rineloricaria sp. 'pantanal' is the closest I could match followed by Rineloricaria parva although this still stumped me.
