Talk:Ancistrus

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Re. the gender of the fish in the image. I'm pretty sure she is female, despite her being called Fred. The bristles are growing and appear all around the lower outside of her chin (if fish have chins). She has recently developed two on the centre line, leading away from the front row, which may be an indication I'm wrong, but so far I can't see any sign of the more spectacular male bristles high on the head. Of course, she (or he/she) is young yet - so I will update with more recent photos/information as she grows -- sannse (talk) 15:03, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm not editing the main page yet, but I thought that only male bristlenose catfish have the bristles. I have two females, and neither have bristles.

Ross-c 20:34, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My books say that the females do often have bristles but smaller, unbranched ones on the outside edge of the chin - they don't have the "horns" on the top of the head that the males do. But, that said, my Fred is growing up fast and the bristles are continuing to develop, including higher on head. So I'm now thinking he is male after all. I think part of the problem is that there are so many species of Ancistrus available, something the article doesn't make clear, which would explain your bristle-less females. Any chance of photos of your females Ross? That would help the develop the article. I've changed the gender under the photo, and also explained that not all bristlenose catfish are the same species. -- sannse (talk) 22:18, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

At what age do the fish reach sexual maturity? Andy- 09:30, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] links

removed 'bluechin xenocara' from 'ancistrus dolichopterus' in the listing - if a discrete page for 'ancistrus dolichopterus' is created then the current redirect from 'ancistrus dolichopterus' will have to be removed - clearly any common names should be mentioned in the article (and not the title)HappyVR 17:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: bristles

Can anyone provide links, references or books/articles to read concern the bristles of ancistrus species - The only infomation I can find is that the bristles are fleshy (an may excreet a substance related to rearing fry/breeding).

The sort of thing I am looking for is internal structure eg is there a blood supply, what is the bristle made of etc.

Additionally it seems that the bristles grow on the margins of the head plates - can anyone give any further info relating to the position of the bristles and the bony structure underlying it.HappyVR 16:42, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My changes

Made quite a big change to the article today - in general formatted as per WikiProject fishes,removed some invalid species and added some new ones, adding some new references and separating aquarium keeping into a separate section. Hope the article is still ok.HappyVR 20:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)