. And when I say mauled I mean it - the body was in a state 
. I was horrified and shocked: I have kept various plecos in a tank together for years and I had never had such an accident. There has been aggression - but never resulted in a death (not between plecs anyway). The more suprising thing was that the deceased was on her territory. And she was by no means a push-over. In fact, she has always been quite assertive in keeping her corner of the tank to herself. I didn't know what to think - particularly as there was no clear aggressor on site and the fight was "recent" (i.e. during the time I was at work).To remove the body, I had to lift a small root up. On doing so I noticed, inside the root, the following:
Clear as daylight: the father considered Starlight's patroling of the area a danger, came out and confronted her. Surprisingly, she lost. But she must have returned for the battle to become one of life or death. (He actually emerged rapidly from his cave to "sort me out" when I started fiddling with the cave and the camera. But I had a lucky escape ..)
I always thought Ancistrus were real "wusses" - they never confront anybody and on appearance of other, more aggressive or territorial fish, they run quickly to the nearest glass surface, stick themselves there and pretend they are part of the decoration. This is clearly not the case during fatherhood. I had now had two instances were fathers of the species proved to be real heros when it comes to protecting their eggs and fry.
On a different note, it looks like I may have to wait a bit longer for my L81 spawning project, though my Ancistrus one is going on superbly
Please welcome my new fry, to be added to the existing army of ancistrus fry in the house.
PS these eggs are definately bigger and more orange than the last batch I put a post about - different father - not sure about mom. Hope fry have better luck as this time they are staying in the big tank ...
