The species of the Delturinae are 9.0 to 23.5 cm long and have a typical armor catfish shape with an elongated, flattened body and a flat head with a suction mouth. Autapomorphies , which diagnose the genus , are keel-like elevations on all bone plates between the dorsal and adipose fin and the two-pointed, approximately symmetrical teeth.
External system
The Delturinae are, apart from the most basal genus Lithogenes , the sister group of all other armored catfish . The systematic position is illustrated by the following cladogram :
RE Reis, EHL Pereira & JW Armbruster: Delturinae, a new loricariid catfish subfamily (Teleostei, Siluriformes), with revisions of Delturus and Hemipsilichthys. In: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Volume 147, Issue 2, pp. 277–299, June 2006 doi : 10.1111 / j.1096-3642.2006.00229.x