New Pleco Species from Rio Sao Francisco

[Edmundo]

The Rio Sao Francisco is a large river in southern Brazil. It´s length is around 3.200 km. The ichthyofauna of the Sao Francisco is comparably well good explored, as there are plans for an irrigation project. So the environment has to be explored and there were and are several studies on the fish fauna.

http://www.plecoclub.org/forum/imagehosting/249d97789af725.jpg

One species was puzzling us, as we have never seen something like that before. On the first glimpse it reminded us on L238/LDA40 due to it´s extraordinary broad mouth. However, catfish expert Ingo Seidel kindly informed us that he thinks our new fish is a member of the genus Hypostomus

It seems that the fish belongs to a so far undescribed species. Due to the well developed odontodes along the pectoral fin spine they are at least sexually mature, maybe even fully grown. Their current size is 5-6 cm. So they could proveproove to become perfect algae-eaters for smaller tanks.

http://www.plecoclub.org/forum/imagehosting/249d97789cc99f.jpg

http://www.plecoclub.org/forum/imagehosting/249d9778a1a28f.jpg http://www.plecoclub.org/forum/imagehosting/249d97789ecce3.jpg

Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
AquariumGlaser (http://www.aquariumglaser.com/en/)

[Alien]

It looks like tank

[Kingfisher]

Thanks for all the wonderful info boss.