Now it is season again for one of the most beautiful of all loricariid catfishes: Acanthicus adonis. The species name “adonis”, which is reminiscent of the ancient god of beauty and vegetation, Adonis, is aptly chosen. For like the god described as a beautiful youth, the Adonis catfish is such a beauty only when young. The animals certainly reach over 50 cm in length, one even hears of specimens twice that size. But then the catfishes are only monochrome black.
Acanthicus adonis was described from the Rio Tocantins in Brazil. Mostly the animals come from Peru into the trade. They should differ from the Brazilian cousins by the smaller eye. Occasionally, the distribution of dots is also cited as the difference between the two populations, but this makes little sense since the distribution of dots – the number, arrangement and size of the white dots – varies extremely from individual to individual and is as unique in each specimen as a fingerprint is in a human.
Maintaining Adonis catfish is easy, but you need to be aware of the size these animals reach. They are also quite aggressive fish, both against conspecifics and against non-species fish.
For our customers: the catfishes have code 201203 (5-7 cm) and 201204 (7-10 cm) on our stock list. Please note that we only supply wholesale.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
