The Puffer Forum

I was wondering what the difference between Auriglobus silus and Auriglobus modestus are? Other then 1" in size. They both look very familiar.
The puffer i bought the other day was listed as Golden Puffer(freshwater not brack/salt).
I was wondering if anyone has kept these, and if so what are some suitable tankmates for them.

Corvus knows better but I see the silus as more slim-bodied with a longer snout. Here are some pics of my modestus. Notice the heavy chest:




As you can see, my puffer is ready for some dentistry in those pics.

Here is some shots of my little puffer. Hes not green like yours, quite golden in color.
Very hard to get shots of hes always on the go lol.

you've got a modestus or possibly a nefastas

but definitely not a silus

Either way these puffers can be particularly viscous and I would not recommend tankmates.

what size tank do you have, provided a large enough tank you could probably try another like puffer

Don't forget a lot of hard shelled foods, this puffer is prone to overgrown teeth!

How do you tell the difference, PC?

Pufferpunk wrote:How do you tell the difference, PC?

LOL, I am not sure!! I have always wanted a silus, guess I just look at the pics too much.

To me the mod has a deeper color, is less fish looking than the silus (auriglobus look less puffer like in general), and just has a "look" in their face.

I can't tell if it is a nefastus I think those are similar to the mod, but have a difference in fins or something like that.

I know that there are several auriglobus out there that are very hard to distinguish from each other and I think some of them are not ever described very well.. I read something about that from Corvus I will try to go find it..

here is something, talks about the mouth (maybe that is the "look" I am talking about??) , I guess I learned this subconsciously

Corvus~
"The most "easy" character to differentiate between A. silus and A. modestus found in literature may be if the upper lip is slightly protruding (A. silus) or if the lower lip is slightly protruding (A. modestus). Also, the A. modestus as Nelae mentioned has a slightly wider caudal peduncle (depth 6.7-7.4 in SL vs. 7.2-8.2 in A. silus)".

Maybe they just need braces?

Pufferpunk wrote:Maybe they just need braces?

The field of puffer orthodontics is severely understaffed. Perhaps for $50 you can do trims and for braces $3,000?

im confused..lol
Well i have a 40gallon breeder tank
Heres another pic, hes VERY hard to get pics of atm.. Still a little sketchy about camera near the tank as i just got him on sunday.
the picture almost make it look like i photoshoped him in there lol...

My two guys




This is the one that has problem with overgrowth of teeth PP

Only the first picture works for me, and it looks identical to my guy..colors and the slim body...

*edit* THey all work, and now the bottom one looks identical to my guy.. oi.. why do they have to look the same?!?! lol.

The one with the deeper chest looks modestus to me & the thin-bodied looks silus.

First of all: I know no 100% reliable way to tell these two species apart with live specimens.
The lip thing I wrote (cited above), I'm not so sure any more if you can decsribe the different snout that way, because Kottelat and Roberts state that the lower lip on A. silus can be protruding and not the upper lip, which should be always protruding at A. nefastus instead. They have probably seen more specimens than me. Sorry for the apparently wrong formulation by me! A better word to define the different look of the snouts is the sloping of the snout which is stronger at A. silus.

So all that remains is the sloping of the snout, the caudal peduncle and fin ray counts (which both can overlap). The latter two can hardly be seen on the pictures. I think both fish shown above have IMO sloping snouts and would call them A. silus or A. cf. silus (cf=confer=latin for compare, which indicates the ID is not 100% safe)

The problem with looking at online pictures of Auriglobus species and trying to ID them by that is that in most cases you won't know if the ID is correct or based on some characters that aren't typical for the species.

This page shows the real ones.
http://m1083.biohostnet.de/index.php?id=sonstige&L=0
You may have to click on the German flag in the upper left corner to make the page work.

Polish puff gives a very good overview in the last post here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=22639&p=242487&hili ... us#p242487

from looking through the pictures in the first link, mine looks more like a Auriglobus modestus to me..
Do you think i could keep one more of them in a 40gal breeder? I wanna get him a buddy.
Also is there ANYTHING i could use as a bottom dweller with him?(i like bottom dweller fish, like whiptails, loachs, etc...)