Brown Otos

To: Plants <Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com>
Subject: Brown Otos
From: "Olive K. Charlsey" <achaudh at emory_edu>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 16:57:32 -0400 (EDT)

Hello,
	I know that the "Brown Oto" that I recently purchase is NOT a
flexilis. I have had the flexilis before - they are cool. This one does
not have as dark a body and instead of having fairly regular yellow-white
spots like the flexilis, it has a rather random arrangement of brown spots
on a lighter brown body. I have not seen them before. Apparently, the guy
that sold it to me said that they "always" have them in stock. As I said a
few months ago, I worked in an aquarium store and did not see them.  Maybe
we only had smaller ones and we called them by a different name. So far,
the guy seems content searching the gravel for algae and has not even
ventured onto any leaves - not even broad leaves.  He has a rather large
mouth and certainly looks like he could do some serious algae eating. 
From the looks of the rasps on the inside of his lips, he would not do the
damage that a normal pl*co or bristlenose would do. I will find out pretty
soon if he is a plant muncher - there are plenty of nice soft new leaves
in the tank for him to eat, if he ever gets that idea and I will know it
is him because the only other animals in the tank are cardinals, SAEs,
otocinclus affinis (regular otos), and ghost shrimp. If no one can figure
out what this thing is from the common name and my (poor) description, I
will search through some sort of atlas to find out the Latin name. Thanks. 

					Alok