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I have heard a lot about plecs being refered to as L-something. What is this?

I'm just wondering as I have heard a lot of this and never fully understood. Thanks

Taken from www.planetcatfish.com:

The "L Number" system began when two German magazines began featuring newly discovered Loricariids in their magazines. Since these species were not yet described to science, the magazines began assigning them "L numbers". The German magazine "DATZ" (Die Aquarien und Terrarienzeitschrift) started with the designation L1 for the Loricariid which has now been described as Glyptopterichthys joselimaianus. So now L1 is retired. Another German magazine "Das Aquarium", also began to run a similar feature in its magazine and labeled the fishes as LDA followed by a number. The DATZ L system is somewhere above L270 and the LDA system is above LDA 30. This numbering system has caught on and new species of Corydoras are now being assigned "C Numbers".

Finally, along came the Aqualog series of books and they published a book with all the known L numbers with photos or drawings of each fish. This makes things a lot easier since not all of us, in America or the UK, have access to back issues of German aquarium magazines. There are apparently some problems though because not all of the photos in the Aqualog book match the species in the photos that ran in the original magazines. So sometimes it is necessary to note where you L number is coming from (magazine or book).

i was confused about that too... ...but now i know...using numbers as a way of identifying fish is like refering to robots...in a way...

sumo

Crikey! I've gone cross-eyed!

Thanks for the info.