BN pleco ids please!

[maryanne]

Greetings PC! So, long story short, someone gave me a male and female BN pleco a month and a half ago. They decided to spawn for me! I was just getting used to the idea of having plecos when all of a sudden there are about 50 more. In my looking up of what to do for the babies, I noticed this website and learned that there are MANY kinds of BN plecos. I was looking at my pair and they don't have the same pattern. If I have inadvertently created a hybrid, I would like to know so that I can tell the new owners of the babies as I'm not out to pull the wool over someone's eyes.

Here's dad being a wonderful keeper of the kids! They just started wiggling yesterday. He's got nice big spots that look almost like a leopard to me.


And mom. She's darker than dad with smaller spots.


From the profile, they look the same. It's just the spots that are different. If these pictures aren't sufficient, I can try and take some more.

Thank you for your assistance!

[MatsP]

They look like typical "common bristlenose",

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

.

--
Mats

[maryanne]

Thank you, Mats! I had kind of suspected that would be the case seeing as the person who gave them to me got them at a pet store. I just wanted to be certain as these are the first catfish I've had and the images of different types still all kind of look the same to me.

[MatsP]

There are lots of species that look simiar, but for captive bred specimens, these are by far the most common [in fact, it's also the most commonly kept species in the register here on Planet Catfish by a fair margin - 479 populations of this species, and 331 of the next one in line, Corydoras aeneus (Bronze Cory)].

Listing Ancistrus species only, the number of registered populations are:

Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus

: 479

Ancistrus sp(4)

[aka "false L144"]: 144

Ancistrus dolichopterus

: 138

Ancistrus claro

: 42

Ancistrus ranunculus

: 41

Ancistrus tamboensis

: 35

Ancistrus sp(L071)

: 29

Ancistrus punctatus

: 28

Ancistrus sp`RIO_UCAYALI`

: 26

Ancistrus sp(L107)

: 22

Ancistrus sp(L180)

: 20

Ancistrus triradiatus

: 19

Ancistrus hoplogenys

: 18

Ancistrus temminckii

: 17 [Some of these are probably A. cf. cirrhosus - as many books and websites incorrectly use A. temminckii as the name for the "common" one]

I'm not going to continue down this list, because it's quite long - but if you look at the first few species, they are clearly nothing like your fish. A. tamboensis may look somewhat similar, but I don't believe that's what you have...

--
Mats