numbers

[Zayne]

i dont really get it when you say some thing like L330 how do i find what these fish are?

[skippy_49nz]

Check one of the "L number" lists on any of the websites. There is a long explanation behind it all but in a nutshell the L number is assigned to a new species until it is described, at which point in theory it goes by a common name but many people still use the L number as the common names can confuse the hell out of people.

if you want to know what a particular number looks like, just google it.

[phoenix44]

go to http://www.planetcatfish.com and do a search there.

basically there are many types of the same fish. the L numbers when correct serve as a method to differentiate between them.

[flatfish]

Hi Zayne,

as skippy_49nz says "the L number is assigned to a new species until it is described."

As for the more complicated explanation. I'll try to keep it simple and hopefully it will make some sense.

Basically in the early days (since 1988) there were lots of new types of plecos coming out of South America into peoples aquariums with no scientific names (they were new to science and the scientists hadn't had a chance to give them a scientific name). It was hard for fish keepers to refer to any one of these new plecos as they didn't have a scientific name or in many cases a common name, so a German magazine decided to call the first new pleco L001 (short for new Loricariidae (the name for plecos) number 1, or effectively new pleco number 001), the second one was called L002, and so on. There are now several hundred L-numbers. A few of these plecos now have a scientific name and many a common name or common names. For example L001 is what we now call the gold spot pleco, or to give it its scientific name, Pterygoplichthys joselimaianus.

To confuse things a little more :-? another German magazine decided to do the same thing and started the LDA-numbers. Luckily there aren’t as many LDA-numbers but some plecos do have an L-number and an LDA-number.

If this makes sense so far great :-? but what is also confusing is why do some plecos have a few L-numbers? This is because some types of plecos are found in more than one river system/river/creek, etc. and there might be slightly different looking forms of the same pleco in each different river or even in the same river. Each of these forms may have been given a different L-number (just to be safe) even though they are the same species.

So the clown Pleco, or Panaque maccus to give it its scientific name is also known as L104, L162, and LDA22. There are several webistes where you can look up the L-numbers. Planet catfish is excellent.

[firenzenz]

Then if that wasn't confusing enough scientists are continually reclassifying the genus(family) of these fish but "L" number stays the same. There are many genus(family) of plecs that have "L" numbers.

Also many pleco's with "L" numbers have corresponding common names that suppliers here will use on other fish which are totally different yet the "L" number.

Most plecs brought into NZ are without a designated "L" number.

This is often because we get in unidentified or hard to identify fish, that without an L number is worth less.

Ironically importation rules here might reject a fish that is too well described, .

"L" numbers are mostly assigned in an unofficial manner here by keen hobbyists.

http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/nu ... &thumbs=16

This is stats from their site

Today's Cat-eLog Statistics:

38 families

395 genera

2360 species

10925 images

This is the L number Mecca.