is this a strange configuration of the mouth on this sucker mouth fish???

I noticed this, on a fish I posted a picture of today ( it's not a new picture, & it's been posted previously... funny I never noticed it before )

this is supposed to be a “Hypoptopoma thoracatum”

but I ordered 3 originally, and this one is different enough I suspect it's a different species...



If you look, the bristle teeth, are mounted on the skull, ( hard lip, in front of the actual sucker mouth ), rather than within it's mouth on other plecos, as such, that I've seen their mouths...

as opposed to this style of mouth...



maybe it's just that the 1st one has a moveable upper lip, where the lip is actually incorporated into the skull, and not moveable...

another....

This is a "normal" Hypoptopoma thoracatum

You really do like stirring up @CaptainBarnicles don't you

This is a close up of an Otocinclus mouth... they appear to have bristly teeth, both on their lip, and inside the sucker mouth???

You should see Leporacanthicus genus pleco teeth.

See this guy?


He's got fangs. He's a meat eater.


My guys teeth



And a better photo from online.


And their mouth shuts like a trap door too. Can say it definitely is an uncomfortable pinch.

Loricariidae are such a diverse group of fish, so many different ways of living among them.