There has been some
confusion on the identity of this diminutive mothcat over the years.
At one time it was thought that it was a small Erethistini
that was first described by Professor Kottelat in 1983 as
Erethistes maesotensis. However, E maesotensis
proved to be a Hara type not an Erethistes type, due to it
having the serrae on the anterior edge of the pectoral spine
antrosely directed and not divergent. It has since been diagnosed
that E maesotensis is Erethistes (Hara)
filamentosa (Ng & Kottelat, 2007). Yet the Erethistini
pictured were the type that was being seen in our local fish
stores under a variety of trade names such as burmese
mini mouth cats and burmese rock cats. It was assumed that
these were Erethistes maesotensis and therefore the
synonym of Hara maesotensis and again as later
Hara filamentosa. However these small Erethistini
have proved to be Hara minuscula (Ng & Kottelat,
2007) [and therefore Erethistes minuscula (Thompson
& Page, 2006)] and the differences between these two when
Erethistes filamentosa and Erethistes minuscula
are juveniles of comparable size, is subtle and misidentification
therefore can be forgiven. In profile Erethistes minuscula
has a curvature to its head whereas in Erethistes
filamentosa the profile is more angular. From www.hillstreamcatfish.com
