Ancistrus sp. “L 327”

At the peak of the L-number-noom, numerous new loricariids came from the Rio Jari, which were immediately assigned L-numbers. In DATZ 08/2002, L 316, the first and one of the most popular forms, was introduced and in DATZ 10/2003, L 344, the eleventh allocation to an Ancistrus sp. followed, which never managed to establish itself in aquaristics. Unfortunately, this happened to almost all species from this time and today one only encounters L 316 and L 318 occasionally. In DATZ 12/2007 two more forms followed with Hypancistrus sp. L 410 and H. sp. L 411, which were able to secure a tank among breeders for the time being mainly due to the great popularity of the genus in general. But even here the success was not long-lasting, because increasingly beautiful Hypancistrus came from the Rio Xingu (Brazil), which visually set new standards and marginalised many of the formerly frequently kept forms and species of the genus.

The Rio Jari flows in a southerly direction in north-eastern Brazil and forms the border of the state of Pará, which lies to the south and west of it, and Amapá, which lies to the east. It flows into the Amazon after 790 km east of the mouth of the Rio Xingu.

I was astonished in early June 2023 when I found a pet shop in Bergen (Norway) with Ancistrus sp. L 327, especially as I knew that Haakon Haagensen was responsible for the aquarium department of the shop and that he would not adopt some dealer’s name or fancy name. The animals looked exactly like L 327 should look if you take the original picture from his presentation in the DATZ for comparison. A black ground colouration with white spots is often found in the genus, but L 327 is somewhat flatter in build and appears narrower and more delicate. According to the presentation in the DATZ, the species should only reach a total length of 8-10 cm, which seems quite plausible to me. The 5-6 cm long animals in the sales tank already showed sex-specific characteristics and no longer gave the impression of being juveniles.

Over the day, we got to talking about this spotted peculiarity and of course the topic quickly turned to the fact that it was strange to suddenly have this one species in front of us, while there had not been any Jari loricariid catfish on the market for a long time. In short: we called Mikael Hakansson in Vara (Sweden). This is where the wholesaler Imazo is based, from whom most Scandinavian dealers get their fish. Mikael had imported the Ancistrus from Janne Ekström, who works for Arapaima Brazil, currently the largest exporter of freshwater fish in Brazil. After a short exchange, Janne confirmed that the fish had indeed been caught in the Rio Jari. There is now only one remaining fish catcher there, who occasionally offers him fish for export. The Swedish wholesaler then secured the small number of fish available and now there is another opportunity to keep the species in aquaristics. A difficult undertaking, because to the common aquarist the species looks like many others. With Ancistrus dolichopterus (L 183) and A. sp. “L 213”, Haakon alone offers three similar species that all look the same at first glance.

Text and picture: Daniel Konn-Vetterlein