Catfish Categories?

[onemisterchristian]

Hey, to say the least i'm not what you would call a catfish officianado, so what is the deal with the catfish that are called L103 and stuff, what's with this weird numbering system, or are ll fish categorized this way or just cats?

 

[invader]

Only Plecos are numbered with the L numbers. There are so many, so they use L numbers to make it easier. Corydoras are also numbered, starting with a C instead of an L. I'm sure there is a more complicated reason for this, but I hope that helps.

 

[onemisterchristian]

But where does the system come from? some catfish book or something. And why L?

 

[CFC]

The L number system was introduced by scientists who were having trouble keeping up with naming all the new plecs being discovered in South America, the L simply stands for Loricarid which is the pleco genus name and the number is the sequence they were found in, so the higher the number the more recently they were discovered.

As said this system has now been adopted for Corydoras using C numbers and more recently for freshwater stingrays using P numbers, with the P standing for Potamotrygon which is the genus name for those.

 

[Fella]

But where does the system come from? some catfish book or something. And why L?

I think (and I'm not sure) that it was created in the late 80's erly 90s by a german publication called "DATZ".

 

[onemisterchristian]

Great, thanks a bunch