Leporinus reticulatus
The Netted Leporinus is a small characin from Brazil's remote Tapajós basin, where it lives close to the river bottom in the Arinos and upper Juruena river systems of Mato Grosso.
Its reticulated dark blotches — irregular, unequal, scattered across a pale body — shift in pattern as the fish grows, making juveniles and adults look almost like different species. Maxing out around 13.
6 cm, it's a narrow-range endemic that turns up in scientific literature and the aquarium trade far more often than in any angler's catch report.
Scientific Name: Leporinus reticulatus
- The body is marked with dark blotches unequal in size and ragged at the edges — in fish under 6 cm these run as transverse bars, but by 8 cm the bars break apart into scattered, irregular spots that give the species its common name.
- Elongated body with a notably long snout; the mouth shifts from sub-terminal in smaller fish to sub-inferior in adults, a structural change that mirrors a real shift in how the fish feeds.
- Tooth morphology changes with age: juveniles carry tricuspid teeth suited to picking invertebrates, while adults develop spatula-shaped incisors without cusps, built for scraping plant material and algae from hard surfaces.
- Maximum recorded standard length is 13.6 cm (about 5.4 inches) — small even by Leporinus standards.
What to know
Habitat Distribution
- Range is tightly restricted to the Arinos River basin and upper Rio Juruena system, both draining into the Tapajós in Mato Grosso, Brazil — this is one of the more geographically limited members of its genus.
- A benthopelagic freshwater species that spends most of its time near the river bottom, gravitating toward structured substrate — fine sand, driftwood, and rock formations that provide both shelter and foraging surfaces.
Specific Spots
- The river bottom is the core zone: sand substrate mixed with driftwood and rocks concentrates the invertebrates and algae-covered surfaces this species depends on at different life stages.
- Juveniles and adults likely use slightly different microhabitats — younger fish picking invertebrates from open substrate, adults working the surfaces of rocks and submerged wood where spatula-shaped teeth can scrape plant material and biofilm.
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