Spatuloricaria is a genus of whiptail catfish in the armored suckermouth family Loricariidae, subfamily Loricariinae, found across a broad swath of South America including the Orinoco, Amazon, and northern Andean-draining river systems, with the atlas's 13 species recorded from Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, and Panama. True to the whiptail body plan, they have an elongated, torpedo-shaped trunk tapering into a long, slender caudal peduncle, and the genus name refers to their distinctively broadened, spoon- or spatula-shaped snout, which they use to browse algae and biofilm from submerged wood and rock in flowing river channels.
Whiptail-catfish enthusiasts keep Spatuloricaria as unusual, peaceful algae grazers, though the largest atlas species reach around 20.5 in and need correspondingly large, elongated aquaria. Names in the atlas, such as the Longtail Pleco, Evans's Spatula Catfish, Naked-belly Whiptail, Phelps's Whiptail, Orinoco Whiptail, and Tuira's Whiptail, mostly describe body shape or collection locality rather than fixed trade standards. Conservation data split fairly evenly between Data Deficient (6) and Least Concern (7), so nothing in the genus is currently flagged as threatened, though detailed survey data for many Loricariinae remain thin.