Fast Flow Flat Cats

A team from the guyane wild fish society goes in search of lithoxus catfish among rapids in french guiana, south america.

- Gregory Quartarollo

The Mana river, the third larges river in French Guiana, is 430 km long, has a catchment of 12,000 square km and 99 rapids (locally named ‘saut’). Among the 170 species occurring in the river, one in particular is sought after — Lithoxus stocki — which belongs to the Loricariidae family, the most diverse catfish family in the world.

The genus Lithoxus includes eight described species, a few undescribed species and certainly more to be discovered. Lithoxus species are externally characterised by a strongly dorsoventrally depressed body and a large round oral disc.

They inhabit mostly fast-moving water and seem to subsist entirely on a diet of insect larvae. All species occur in rivers of the Guiana shield. Three species are listed from French Guiana: L. planquettei in all rivers, L. boujardi on the East (Oyapock, Approuague and Comté rivers), and L. stocki on the West (Maroni and Mana rivers). One specimen of a new species was collected in 2012 in a small tributary of the Oyapock river. The colour pattern was similar to the L. pallidimaculatus from Surinam. A few inventories were conducted in adjacent streams but no more specimens were found.

A few years ago a population of Lithoxus was discovered by the Guyane Wild Fish society (GWF) on Grand Laussat creek, a small tributary of Mana River, well known to South American cichlid keepers for its beautiful population of Guianacara owroewefi. As specimens of Lithoxus stocki were needed for refining the phylogeny of the Lithoxus genus, five members of GWF took part in an expedition on Grand Laussat creek to collect some.

Through the jungle