Wertheimeria maculata

[Iamfish]

He just arrived, and is very small >2 inches. I can't wait to see how his yellow spots develop.

[bekateen]

Wow, it looks nothing like the adult color pattern. Are you sure the ID is right?

Cheers, Eric

[Iamfish]

Wow, it looks nothing like the adult color pattern. Are you sure the ID is right?

Cheers, Eric

Idk, but he is very small, less then 2" so there is a lot of room for change. My platysilurus barely had a mark when I got him now is full Spotted

[bekateen]

[Jools]

Yes, really important one this, we just don't have pictures of this species at that size. However, I agree with Eric in so far as it's a long way from what a bigger fish looks like. Fascinating to see how it develops. It perhaps explains why the fish was never exported in numbers, it's not pretty when it's a sensible size to ship.


Jools

[bekateen]

Not just the colors. The body proportions are all wrong. Maculatus adults have a much longer body posterior to the dorsal fin relative to the body anterior to the dorsal. Yes body shape changes in lots of species as the grow allometrically, but this would be pretty dramatic.

Just speculating here. I wanna see this growing up.

Cheers, Eric

[amiidae]

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php? ... cation=ufi

[Viktor Jarikov]

This one of the first imports in the US, I think. And brought in by @JasonGoneFishing viewtopic.php?f=25&t=47908 who I'd trust.

As for my opinion, I don't think I have ever seen a Doradid like this one, which makes me believe that chances are this is the newly described fish and the ID should be correct.

Oliver Lukanus from BelowWater (Canada) too brings these in. His are right now at $400 each or so. Jason's $250. Oliver says they used to be only smuggled around the world just recently at around $3000 each.

EDIT: thanks so much to Ben for posting that FB link. One can see the babies are not spotted but some of the larger ones appear to show faint spots already.

[bekateen]

Thanks for the info and link, amiidae and Viktor.

Cheers, Eric

[Jools]

Fascinating, they look spot on. I noted google was already picking up the misspelling of the genus name, so have corrected is here to be Wertheimeria. It was just missing an h.

If anyone has a copy of Natural history of the "Wertheimeria maculata, a basal doradid catfish endemic to eastern Brazil (Siluriformes: Doradidae)" article in Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters 18(2) · June 2007, I'd appreciate being able to read it / add info to the site.

Apart from anything else, I'd like to learn how to pronounce it!

Jools

[Iamfish]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaPHzy-aydk

[racoll]

If anyone has a copy of Natural history of the "Wertheimeria maculata, a basal doradid catfish endemic to eastern Brazil (Siluriformes: Doradidae)" article in Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters 18(2) · June 2007, I'd appreciate being able to read it / add info to the site.

Apart from anything else, I'd like to learn how to pronounce it!

I had a look for the paper, but I don't have it unfortunately.

Pronunciation-wise, it was named after a Mr Wertheimer, so should be something like "vert-hi-mare-ree-ah".

[Jools]

Thanks Rupert and for Lee for helping me with the paper, I was wondering if I could find the nationality of Mr. Wertheimer as it could be a hard v or a soft w depending on this. I've defaulted to w as that's what's written (for now) albeit it's probably Germanic in origin. Also the stress in those langues is on the firs syllable, but, if anglicised, the stress in on the third syllable and so I've gone with that.

Jools

[racoll]

I was wondering if I could find the nationality of Mr. Wertheimer as it could be a hard v or a soft w depending on this.

From Etyfish:

"... belonging to: Mr. Wertheimer, who collected type, either Louis Wertheimer of the Thayer Expedition to Brazil, or Achilles Wertheimer, who died on the expedition due to a snakebite (see Pogonopoma wertheimeri, Loricariidae)."

[Jools]

Turns out the hard v is indeed correct. Meanwhile, have got some pics coming from the gentleman breeding these things in Brazil.

http://www.hek.com.br/#planetcatfish


Jools