Help me ID this catfish...

[xyra]

Saw this fish at the weekend and was quite taken by it, was in st. albans maidenhead aquatics, nearly bought it but managed to hold off Was around 20" long and pretty deep bodied.... The looks of it keep ringing a bell in the back of my head, but I can't place it, and i can't find it on PC or any of my books. I may have just missed something though









Any ideas guys?
Graham

[Berber King]

Looks like a Perruno or Perruno X

[xyra]

Originally Posted by Berber King

Looks like a Perruno or Perruno X

Fully adult leiarius pictus is the is the conclusion from another forum. Perruno has only 8 dorsal rays. Markings not quite right for marmoratus...

Still tempted to go back and get it

[renton]

The experts belive no-one has a true perruno cat in captivity.
I would say the dorsal fin is to small to be L. Pictus and looks alot more like my Marbled pim or Leiarius marmoratus previously L. longibarbis.

If looked after properly should get to around 30" so need a huge tank when adults, on its own or with other big peacefull fish.

Beautifull fish though, mine eats from my hand and lets me stroke him. They also keep there marbled pattern thoughout there lives.

Trying to post a couple of pics but photobucket is sayingi have a network error so i may try again later.

[xyra]

Originally Posted by renton

The experts belive no-one has a true perruno cat in captivity.
I would say the dorsal fin is to small to be L. Pictus and looks alot more like my Marbled pim or Leiarius marmoratus previously L. longibarbis.

If looked after properly should get to around 30" so need a huge tank when adults, on its own or with other big peacefull fish.

Beautifull fish though, mine eats from my hand and lets me stroke him. They also keep there marbled pattern thoughout there lives.

Trying to post a couple of pics but photobucket is sayingi have a network error so i may try again later.

According to the people on the other forum, apparently the dorsal shrinks in pictus as it gets older and in the photos it still has the remnants for the verticle bar which is entirely abscent in marmoratus. Pictus also apparently loose the patterning more than marmoratus (as you can see in the pics it was mainly a mottled body colouration).

My marmoratus is only young still at 15" and hence still has very bold patterning and hasn't developed the very deep body yet either so it's difficult to compare directly for me!

I personally agree on the dorsal looking very like marmoratus - and it certainly has too many dorsal rays to be perruno