Description
Loricariidae
Hypancistrus sp. L236 is with around 12 cm body length a rather small pleco and is therefore easy to fit in most tanks. This unsubscribed species shows a white coloration with a black, grey or brown wormline pattern. Its pattern has a high variability and can show a transition from dots to worm-lines to stripes. This very popular pleco is found in a lot of tanks of pleco enthusiasts, liked for its bright white coloration. What a true L236 really is, is not possible to say. This has different reasons. One of it is, that it’s not 100% sure where the first L236 really was caught. Available information, about it being from the Rio Iriri, proved to be a hoax. The second difficulty is, that there is a lot of so called worm line – Hypancistrus in the Rio Xingu / Rio Iriri area. Almost all Hypancistrus spp. there, show a high variability in coloration and pattern, which makes two individuals of the same batch look like two totally different species and the other way around. As one of the few line-bred plecos, also L236 was bred and selected over generations. The most famous breeding line is from Robert Budrovcan, where the offspring are labeled as RB. Over the years the term L236 started to explain more and more a Hypancistrus with more white than black in the body coloration. Other L-Numbers like L400 for example, can produce identical offspring, and therefore are also sometimes sold as L236. Hybridization is possible and also occurred several times. Animals with more white in the coloration are mostly labeled as SW (for super white), more yellowish specimens as SY (for super yellow) and specimens with broader stripes and a therefore darker appearance are labeled as basic. All those factors lead to the fact, that Hypancistrus sp. L236 is rather a label for a coloration form than for a specific pleco/subspecies/local form from a specific catching location, than anything else.
