A scientist has described two new species of loricariid catfish from the Chaetostoma genus.
Norma Salcedo of Texas Tech University described the new catfishes as Chaetostoma daidalmatos and C. stroumpoulos in a paper in the latest issue of the journal Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters.
The bulldog plecs were discovered 650m above sea level in the upper Huallaga River in central Peru.
Chaetostoma daidalmatos has large dark rounded spots on the body and the dorsal and caudal fins, a head length of 28.4-30.9%, a cleithral width of 29.2-30.8% and an interorbital width of 32.5-35.6% of the head length.
Chaetostoma stroumpoulos has dark rounded spots on the body, a head depth of 17.9-21.2% of standard length and a dorsal fin length of 21.4-24.9% of standard length.
Says Salcedo: "The new species occur in sympatry and differ from each other on characters such as: shape of papillae on naked snout, extent of dorsal fin and pectoral spine, and caudal fin shape; and measurements such as: cleithral width, interbranchial width, first dorsal-fin ray length, and pelvic-anal length."
The Huallaga River, which is also known as the Rio de los Motilones, joins the Rio Amazonas west of the Rio Ucayali and rises high in the mountains on the northern side of the Cerro de Pasco.
The Huallaga is a torrential river and has 42 rapids making it difficult to navigate and hard to explore.
For more information see the paper: Salcedo NJ (2006) - Two new species of Chaetostoma (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from the Huallaga River in central Peru. Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. Vol. 17. No. 3. pp. 207-220.