Loaches Online Forum

Upon close examination of our bn pleco tonight, my husband exclaimed in delight. All around his mouth, there are TINY little bristle thingies!
So, if only boys get them at all, it is a male! If they both do, and the females are just smaller...well....we still don't know then lol.
Still. My husband was so proud that I thought he was going to go buy cigars for all his friends. I had to remind him, YOU didn't make him a boy sweetheart.

The girls can have small bristles, but if he is small, I find it unlikely that he would be showing bristles as a girl, but I am not expert.

Once my boys matured, it was super obvious. The bristles are long, multibranching and really wild. My albino males have a red blotch on the head back of between their eyes.