#hypostomus

Hypostomus ancistroides

A suckermouth catfish found in the Tietê River basin of Brazil. Species from this genus are known for their ability to breathe air and also to eat and digest wood.

I always love a good Cochliodon discussion!

Today in Panaque... A really nice watermelon pleco, from an article that talks about Cochliodon. Not Panaque cochliodon, but Hypostomus cochliodon (and friends).

Yeah, L77, L137, L138. None of these are the picture above at the beginning of the article. The article is all over the place pleco wise. It eventually stabilizes into a H. cochliodon group discussion (and no, the above pic isn’t a Panaque “Bruno”, the fish doesn’t exist. Hypostomus “Bruno” does exist).

I did find this part interesting:

“A couple of years later the scientific community announced that this species was not actually a Panaque but a close relative that belonged to the Cochilodon grouping. This brought about a name change to Salt and Pepper Plec. which would then give way to Coffee and Cream Plec. Surely the L77 tag would have been easier to follow?”

Yeah, L77 is easier. The connections between Cochliodon and Panaque are always a good read. While the connection between Panaque/Panaqolus is obvious, the connection between Panaque/Cochliodon (Hypostomus) is a little more mysterious. Not Panaque enough but not really Hypostomus either.

Source

Hypostomus luteus, phase 3

Highlighter for all your school notes

Does anyone know more about this beautiful pleco? I found the picture on Pinterest and all it said was Cochliodon Hypostomus sp. Teles Pires. All I know is that it’s possibly a part of the special Hypostomus cochliodon group (like neato pleco Hypostomus soniae).

Best lead I got was this from Südamerikafans. Apparently it was on a German stock list recently. (Panta Rhei, says Google) Also this from L-welse.com.

Quick picture ID guide for “common” plecos for beginning pleco hobbyists to take to the aquarium store. (Buy a bristlenose, or any of the tons of small plecos out there.) (pics from google/bing)

Today in crazy invasive plecos... one long post inspired by googling “invasive Hypostomus”. This picture above is NOT a Hypostomus plecostomus! This is some sort of Pterygoplicthys! (I’m also posting this to show how much the sailfin pleco is “common” and the actual common pleco isn’t really that common.) The actual Wikipedia article has the correct picture of Hypostomus plecostomus.

(For this post, Pterygoplicthys are referred to as “sailfin pleco” and Hypostomus plecostomus as “common pleco”.)

So to save you some trouble, here’s a quick list of how to tell the difference:

The one thing they do have in common is that they grow to at least or over 12 inches. So they are best recommended to monster fish keepers, people who can upgrade as the pleco grows, or large ponds.

The biggest, most notable difference is the dorsal fin. In Pterygoplicthys, there are more than 10 rays in their dorsal fin. Hypostomus have 8 or fewer rays.

Hypostomus plecostomus is also much, much lighter in color, and their pattern is more “dotted”, or would it be “speckled”? (Compared to the dark animal print of the sailfin pleco.)

Here’s a previous post with a pic of Hypostomus plecostomus.

Source:

Pterygoplicthys pardalis, Planet Catfish

Hypostomus plecostomus, Planet Catfish