Unknown Spiny Eel

[TheSilentPerogy]

Hello all. First time poster, long time lurker.
I've wanted a spiny eel for my 60 Gallon for quite some time. At the start of July I purchased a Peacock Spiny Eel (Macrognathus siamensis) which died a week later (I believe due to an internal bacterial infection), never having eaten under my care.
A couple months went by and I was unable to find any other eels in the LFS's other than Tire Track (M. armatus) and Fire (M. erythrotaenia). Until, one day, I ventured into one and found a new sign up advertising 'Yellow Spiny Eel', with only the genus 'Mastacembelus' beside it.
I looked into the tank and found, disappointingly, a single Tire Track Eel. I asked the LFS employee where the Yellow Eel was, so he dug under the substrate and revealed a beautiful, golden eel about 5 inches long.
Being the good, self-controlled fish owner I am, I left it there to do some research.
However, rather than being able to narrow it down to a few species, I was merely able to eliminate a couple - namely, the three common eels (M. siamensis, armatus, and erythrotaenia). There is a surprising lack of pictures available of the other species of Macrognathus and Mastacembelus, as well as information on their coloration and growth patterns. Heck, the same type of sign that advertised 'Yellow Spiny Eel' at the LFS had one for the Tire Tracks that said they topped off at 8 inches (some people are in for a big surprise).
Anyway, I narrowed it down to either M. circumcinctus and M. zebrinus. Unfortunately, neither Fishbase.org nor Google Images is able to give detailed pictures of either one, just tiny thumbnails.
Since neither of these commonly reaches beyond a foot or foot-and-a-half, I purchased the lucky little guy and have had him for a month so far, eating healthily.
So...this is where you come in!
Here are a couple pictures of him in all his glory (the colors don't do him justice though):

Spiny Eel 1

Spiny Eel 2

Any help is appreciated!

 

[The-Wolf]

Mastacembelus armatus zig-zag eel?
http/www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSum...iesname=armatus

 

[CFC]

M.armatus is the Tyre track eel and it certainly isnt one of those.

Ive seen the fish you have in stores before simply labeled as Mastacembelus sp. which basicly means no one has bothered to give them a name yet. If they start to appear more then some scientist somewhere will make up a name for them but until then you'll just have to call it a yellow spiny eel.

 

[TheSilentPerogy]

Thanks for the replies, The-Wolf and CFC.
I had thought it could be the case that it was an unnamed species of eel, but the Peacock Eel I had bought before just had a 'Macrognathus spp.' label, when it was definitely a Macrognathus siamensis.
Guess I just have to sit back and see how big he grows! Thanks again for the help.

 

[nmonks]

It doesn't look like either Mastacembalus circumcinctus or Mastacembalus zebrinus to me.

One of the things I do with odd and new fish is try out Fishbase, using the "show species" option after narrowing things down to the family. Assuming these fish come from Asia (and your retailer would probably be able to confirm this), you can narrow the list thus:

http/filaman.uni-kiel.de/identification/...=432&areacode=4

You can discount the Macrognathus species if this beastie doesn't have the tell-tale "trunk" at the tip of its nose typical of that genus.

The other thing to do is count the dorsal and anal fin spines; these can also be used in the species list screen to reduce the list. On a spiny eel, the spines should be pretty obvious! Counting them on a live fish is tricky... I've found taking a picture and counting from those helps.

Cheers,

Neale