Loaches Online Forum

Picked up some sewellia "spotted" but two look to be different. Some "spotted" do have a few squiggly line patterns but not as much as these two. Here are two photos of the two I am not sure about being "spotted" or not (sorry for some of the blotches in the photos as there was stuff floating on top of the water while I was acclimating them):

Hi
Certainly not S. albisurea and probably not S. sp SEW01. I see three possibilities: one is a species described by Nguyen 2005 - there we know nothing about or S. sp SEW01 has some variants in patterning, which I dont believe, as head-shape is different too. And third: hybrid which is possible for tank-bred specimen but not for wild caught.
Headshape of S. albisurea is different to both as it has no spots at all but a vermicular pattern overall, only two rows of thin dark lateral linings with "rectangular" bright spots in between and a row of small black spots underneath from midst of ventral fins to caudal fin. Judging it by the only original pic of the species and the pics of the conservated specimen shown by J. Freyhof.
Only pics jugded as "possible" by J. Freyhof here in the dorsal view
http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/se ... albisuera/
Pics by Beverley Newcomer. I don't see a conformity in patterning. The colour of S. albisurea is described as "pale-grey". I tend to another of the Nguyen-species we know nothing about. The other shown specimen shown in the profile are not S. albisurea.
Cheers Charles

Interesting. These are wild caught specimen and the importer had them listed as sewellia breviventralis, which they are not. I hope to get a ID on these two as the importer is also interested in knowing which species they are.