Taxonomy & naming
Lampiella gibbosa was described by Miranda Ribeiro in 1908. It belongs to the subfamily Hypoptopomatinae within the family Loricariidae — the dwarf suckermouth armoured catfishes. The Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer, CAS) is the authority for valid names; the species is the type and only species of the genus Lampiella.
The specific epithet gibbosa derives from Latin gibbus, meaning humped, in reference to the species' body profile. FishBase records the authority as Miranda Ribeiro, 1908, consistent with the combination used here.
Morphology
Lampiella gibbosa is a small loricariid reaching a maximum recorded length of about 2 in TL. The epithet gibbosa points to a distinctly humped body outline. Beyond the overall size and the body-profile reference encoded in its name, detailed squamation, fin-ray counts and colour-pattern descriptions are not summarised in the available sources and are not reconstructed here. Sexual dimorphism has no data published for this species.
Habitat
The species is endemic to South America — Brazil, in the Ribeira de Iguape River basin, a coastal drainage of southeastern Brazil. It is a freshwater, demersal species of tropical waters, with a reported temperature range of roughly 72–77 °F. Further habitat detail — substrate, flow, water chemistry and microhabitat preferences — is not available in the consulted sources.
Feeding
No diet has been published for Lampiella gibbosa. Hypoptopomatines are generally aufwuchs grazers that rasp algae and biofilm from submerged surfaces, but no species-specific feeding data is available, and none is asserted here.
Mating
No data published. Courtship and mating behaviour are undocumented for this species in the available sources.
Breeding
No data published. Reproductive mode, clutch size, spawning site and parental care have not been recorded for Lampiella gibbosa in the consulted sources.
In the aquarium
Lampiella gibbosa is not an established aquarium species and has no documented husbandry record. Its small size and tropical (about 72–77 °F) freshwater coastal-stream origin would, in principle, suggest general dwarf-loricariid care, but no species-specific guidance can be offered without fabricating detail.
Conservation
The IUCN Red List assessed Lampiella gibbosa as Near Threatened (NT) in 2018. The assessment reflects its restricted distribution within the Ribeira de Iguape coastal drainage, a region exposed to habitat alteration. As a narrow-range endemic, the species warrants monitoring, though detailed population trend data is limited in the available sources.