This species is distinguished from its congeners by the following characters: vertebrae 12-14 from first neural spine not including hypural plate (vs. 8-11); it differs from all (except murinus) by having yellowish bars on tip of dorsal and caudal fins; differs from immaculatus and zuanoni by the small yellowish dots covering the body (vs. color pattern uniform, without dots or large white spots, respectively); differs from tocantinensis by having the rounded dorsal profile of snout (vs. snout pointed); differs from murinus by the presence of a bar-shaped eversible opercle with conspicuous

odontodes (vs. triangle-shaped opercle not eversible, no conspicuous odontodes) and by the presence of 4 unbranched anal-fin rays (vs. 3) (Ref. 95496).