diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 1cc12a86..4a5ccd76 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 - bicubic is better on 32-bit int images
 - add pdfload, svgload, gifload for PDF, SVG and GIF rendering 
 - vipsthumbnail knows about pdfload and svgload
+- matload is more specific (thanks bithive)
 
 27/1/16 started 8.2.3
 - fix a crash with SPARC byte-order labq vips images
diff --git a/libvips/foreign/matlab.c b/libvips/foreign/matlab.c
index a7663f55..a4b3d576 100644
--- a/libvips/foreign/matlab.c
+++ b/libvips/foreign/matlab.c
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@
  * 21/8/14
  * 	- swap width/height
  * 	- set interpretation to rgb16 etc. 
+ * 16/2/16
+ * 	- more specific is_a test 
  */
 
 /*
@@ -319,14 +321,13 @@ vips__mat_load( const char *filename, VipsImage *out )
 int
 vips__mat_ismat( const char *filename )
 {
-	mat_t *mat;
+	unsigned char buf[15];
 
-	vips_error_freeze();
-	mat = Mat_Open( filename, MAT_ACC_RDONLY );
-	Mat_Close( mat );
-	vips_error_thaw();
+	if( vips__get_bytes( filename, buf, 10 ) &&
+		vips_isprefix( "MATLAB 5.0", (char *) buf ) )
+		return( 1 );
 
-	return( mat != NULL );
+	return( 0 );
 }
 
 const char *vips__mat_suffs[] = { ".mat", NULL };
diff --git a/libvips/foreign/matload.c b/libvips/foreign/matload.c
index 2101ccde..4423894a 100644
--- a/libvips/foreign/matload.c
+++ b/libvips/foreign/matload.c
@@ -122,11 +122,6 @@ vips_foreign_load_mat_class_init( VipsForeignLoadMatClass *class )
 
 	foreign_class->suffs = vips__mat_suffs;
 
-	/* We need to be lower priority than the jpeg loader, since some jpegs
-	 * can make libmatio segv on Mat_Open(). 
-	 */
-	foreign_class->priority = -50;
-
 	load_class->is_a = vips__mat_ismat;
 	load_class->get_flags_filename = 
 		vips_foreign_load_mat_get_flags_filename;