Loaches Online Forum

Just thought I'd share this photo taken today. This specimen in life is ALWAYS a copper colour, it never turns brown or blackish. Unfortunately the photograph doesnt do it justice. My friend has one similar and his is an adult female. Are they nasal barbels I can see? Could this be a P. filinaris?

Was this a 'contaminant' in a batch of something else?

Emma

Emma Turner wrote:Was this a 'contaminant' in a batch of something else?

Emma

Hi Emma

I found it in a tank with various other fish. The shop owner assured me he hadnt ordered it and there had been no Pangio's in that tank, so I'm assuming it was a contaminant. What do you think about it? It does seem to tie in with filinaris??

Do you by any chance have a higher resolution pic (or could you take one?). I tried zooming in on the head area to take a look at those nasal barbels/nares but it gets too pixelated.

Lovely fish, by the way.

Emma

Emma Turner wrote:Do you by any chance have a higher resolution pic (or could you take one?). I tried zooming in on the head area to take a look at those nasal barbels/nares but it gets too pixelated.

Lovely fish, by the way.

Emma

Hi Emma

I will try and take one this Saturday if the weather is good. I will also try and take one of my friends larger specimen to see if that is the same (not sure where he got his from).

Thanks

I have done some more photo's although the Castleford weather wasnt good so not much good natural light. You'll also have to excuse my 6 year old camera, it is only 3.8mp and it's showing it's age.

Anyway, here is another shot of the fish, and a couple of close ups of the head. You may be able to see that they are nasal barbels albeit they have a flap on them. I have had a good close up look at the fish with the naked eye and can clearly see barbels. I do think this is a P. filinaris.





This next fish is my friend's fish, and its for all intents and purposes like the normal 'black kuhli' that we see, except that it always exhibits a paler body colour than the normal black kuhlis. This doesnt have nasal barbels, just a flap/tube. The specimen I think is a filinaris has a different shape to the dorsal fin and has a different colour and assortment of freckles on the body.





This next fish is a standard black kuhli, albeit it has lost the dark colour it shows in its own tank. This is a large adult of approx. 7 or 8 cm SL and has been owned by successive members of our club for around 5 or 7 years (and it was an adult when purchased). Roy has quite a few of these big adults. This doesnt have nasal barbels.

Thanks for the photographs, TDO.

I've just had a look back through the Pangio paper and going by the key, it does seem to correlate to Pangio filinaris.

What sort of size is this specimen? The only other possibilty I see is P. mariarum which supposedly is also brown, has long nasal barbels but supposedly attains a larger adult size (68mm SL) compared to P. filinaris (35mm SL). Although I know some of these sizes may not be totally accurate as an exhaustive number of specimens were unlikely looked at.

If we are all in agreement with P. filinaris, it would be nice to include your photographs in a new species profile for the site, if that's ok with you Steve.

Emma

Thanks Emma

I looked at mariarum too. That species apparently has the body not as deep. Also it has 6 ventral rays whereas filinaris has 5. My specimen appears to have 5. Having checked this I am now even more convinced that it is a filinaris. I didn't measure the fish but from memory I would say it is about 5cm SL.

Please use the images if you wish. I have done a search on the Web and can't find any of filinaris, could this be an exclusive?

Best wishes

Nice find. With chance oddballs like this turning up in shipments of other fish, you have to wonder why it took so long for them to be described. I have never seen a Pangio like that one.

Mark in Vancouver wrote:Nice find. With chance oddballs like this turning up in shipments of other fish, you have to wonder why it took so long for them to be described. I have never seen a Pangio like that one.

Thanks Mark.

Here you go, as promised, Dark Lord:

http://www.loaches.com/species-index/pangio-filinaris

And thank you for the photographs. If you take any more, be sure to let me know as I can add them into the photo gallery for the species.

Emma

Emma Turner wrote:Here you go, as promised, Dark Lord:

http://www.loaches.com/species-index/pangio-filinaris

And thank you for the photographs. If you take any more, be sure to let me know as I can add them into the photo gallery for the species.

Emma

Thank you very much. Looks v good. If I can take any more images I will do so.
Cheers