This species is much rare in the hobby than its congener A. stigmatias, presumably a reflection of its more remote, restricted natural range.

The red pigmentation on the body can vary in both extent and intensity, and apparently begins to fade when the fish have been maintained in aquaria for a period.

This species does appear in the aquarium trade from time-to-time, often among shipments of other wild-caught fishes from the Orinoco basin.

Populations from Colombia were formerly referred to as C. metae until Zarske (2011) synonymised the two when designating a lectoty…

This species has been widely referred to as the congener C. nattereri in aquarium literature both prior to and post-publication of its official description in 2006.

The two can be told apart quite easily by the fact that C. nattereri possesses a dark lateral stripe while C. meinkeni does not.

C. meinkeni can be distinguished from all congeners by the followi…

This species was described from a single specimen and included in the genus Leporinus until 2011 at which point the holotype was examined and recognised as corresponding to the fish described as Synaptolaemus cingulatus (Myers & Fernández-Yépez, 1950).

Décor is relatively unimportant and maintenance simple provided sufficient space is available.

A natural-style arr…

Type locality is ‘Tukeit, Guyana’, and this species is known from various river drainages of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana including the Orinoco, Essequibo, and upper Courantyne (aka Corantijn) basins.

Additional records exist from the upper Amazon basin in Guyana, these presumably corresponding to the Takutu river basin, itself part of the upper rio Branco.

Type locality is given simply as ‘Amazon River, Brazil’ and according to current thinking this species has a huge natural range encompassing the Amazon River system in Brazil and Peru plus the Paraná-Paraguay drainage in southern Brazil and Paraguay and rio São Francisco basin in southern Brazil.

Specimens in our images were collected fro…

This species is also known as ‘Marilyn’s pencilfish’. It’s rarely traded in numbers and more often seen as bycatch among shipments of other species, particularly Paracheirodon axelrodi.

It can be identified by the following combination of characters: three dark lateral stripes (sometimes referred to as primary, secondary, and tertiary); nocturnal oblique bars relatively narrow, with the anterior bar reaching, but not extending past, the anterior base of the dorsal-fi…

This is the smallest member of the genus and rarely traded in numbers, though it’s a relatively common contaminant among shipments of wild fishes from Manaus. Unlike other Nannostomus spp. it does not exhibit a specific colour pattern of spots or bars at night-time, rather displaying an overall paleness.

The family Lebiasinidae is included in the order Characiformes and sometimes split into the nominal subfamilies Lebiasininae a…

This rich feeding ground is exploited until the sea water returns, at which point the catfishes begin to migrate upstream in massive numbers, moving up the Amazon and its tributaries. Sexually mature individuals are not normally recorded during these events so they’re thought related to feeding and dispersal rather than spawning. The fish are subject to intensive capture by commercial and artisanal fishing operations during this upstream movement.