This species is distinguished from its congeners by the following set of characters: jaguar-like colour pattern on the flank, consisting of irregularly shaped pale brown spots of variable size and shape, with their margins overlapped by small dark brown spots; short barbels, with the tip of the maxillary and rictal barbels reaching the middle portion of the interopercular patch of odontodes and the tip of the nasal barbel reaching between the eye and the opercular patch of odontodes; the first pectoral-fin ray terminating in a rudimentary filament, weakly extending beyond the fin membrane; the posterior extremity of the pelvic fin at a vertical through the anterior portion of the dorsal-fin base; the dorsal-fin origin at a vertical through the centrum of the 20th or 21st vertebra; 38 or 39 vertebrae; long metapterygoid, its horizontal length longer than the horizontal length of hyomandibula anterior outgrowth; and a small lateral projection on the lateral margin of the lateral ethmoid, just posterior to the articular facet for the autopalatine (Ref. 138851).