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Steven Grant (1)

Description: The caudal fin is emarginate with the upper lobe significantly longer. Humeral process with spines that increase in size towards the back. Colouration: Very similar to Amblydoras affinis from the Rio Branco. It also has a longer and broader longitodinal band. The belly is light with small dark spots and the poscleitral bridge presents lot of melanophores. Habitat: Mostly caught in the Mata Matà black water course which empties into the Amazon River in the Ambyiacu. Aquarium Care: No problem in a normal community tank as long as you can give them plenty of hiding places to make them feel more secure. Diet: Good quality flake food, frozen blood worms and tablet food. Live worms such as whiteworm and cut up garden worms. Etymology: The specific name monitor: Alusion not explained; in presenting his paper to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1871, Cope reportedly described the swim bladder of A. monitor as having a “gun-boat style of shape,” perhaps a reference to USS Monitor, an ironclad warship commissioned in 1862 during the U.S. Civil War that received much attention at the time (name could also be comparing the fish’s bony shields to the Monitor’s ironclad hull; note that in the same paper Cope compared Physopyxis lyra to a “miniature iron-clad with mast and outriggers”).

Monitor Catfish

Zathorax monitor

Doradidae

South America: Upper Amazon River basin. Type locality: Small streams tributary to the Ambyiacu, as well as the river itself which empties into the Amazon near Pebas, in Eastern Ecuador, some distance east of the Napo.

9.0cm. (3¾ins)

23-28°C (73-83°F)

6.5-7.5.

Conservación Internacional; seris de Guías Tropicales De Campo. Pecos del medio Amazonas Región de Leticia. 546 p.
Ferraris, C.J. Jr., 2007. Checklist of catfishes, recent and fossil (Osteichthyes: Siluriformes), and catalogue of siluriform primary types. Zootaxa 1418:1-628.
The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database © Christopher Scharpf.