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Peter Petersen (2) Freshwater Fish from Uruguay 2nd. edition (1)

The Hypostomus genus has 7 soft rays to the dorsal fin whereas the similar looking Pterygoplichthys species have 10 soft dorsal fin rays. Description: Dorsal spines (total): 2; Dorsal soft rays (total): 7; Anal spines: 1; Anal soft rays: 4. This species is distinguished from all its congeners, except H. affinis, H. punctatus, H. ancistroides, H. commersoni, by the following characters: teeth bifid (vs. spoon-shaped); dark spots on light background (vs. light spots on a dark background or not spotted); with 4 rough lateral ridges on flanks (vs. no strong ridges on flanks); lateral series plates 26-29 (vs. < 28 in several species, 31-32 in H. laplatae); differs from H. laplatae with 1-2 plates bordering posterior margin of supraoccipital bone (vs. 3-4); differs from H. affinis, H. punctatus, H. ancistroides by its inter-dorsal distance 14.7-20.4% in SL (vs. 18.9-21.0%) and with head depth 48.8-76.4% in HL (vs. 48.2-49.9%); differs from H. commersoni by having large lateral ridges with odontodes posteriorly inclined (vs. fine and with odontodes in all directions), strong lateral ridges in caudal peduncle (vs. weak), mid lateral ridge from 2nd or 3rd plate (vs. from first plate), adults (> 12 cm SL) with a very weak ridge on temporal plate (vs. strong ridge). Aquarium Care: Will need a good sized aquarium of 5ft (150cm.) or over due to their final adult size. As this genus in the main are messy eaters, good water quality and filtration would need to be adhered to. Diet: Will eat all manner of foods in the aquarium, vegetable, tablet, pellet foods and a good quality flake food. Etymology: spinus, spine; –iger, to bear, i.e., spiny, allusion not explained, perhaps referring to dermal odontodes of holotype, described as keeled scales with tips “extending into small spines” (translation).

None

Plecostomus spiniger

Loricariidae

South America: Uruguay River and Dos Patos system (Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina).

28.0cm. (11ins)

20-25°c (67-77°f.)

7.0-8.5.

Cardoso, Y. P., F. Brancolini, L. Protogino, A. Paracampo, S. Bogan, P. Posadas and J.I. Montoya-Burgos, 2019. An integrated approach clarifies the cryptic diversity in Hypostomus Lacépède 1803 from the Lower La Plata Basin. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciéncias 91(2):e20180131: [1-25].
Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2023. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version.
Loureiro M, González-Bergonzoni I, Teixeira de Mello F. 2023. Freshwater Fishes of Uruguay. Second edition. Vertebrate Zoology Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, University of the Republic.
The ETYFish Project Fish Name Etymology Database © Christopher Scharpf.