Bathyaethiops breuseghemi?
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February 4, 2011 at 5:17 pm #301109February 5, 2011 at 12:00 pm #340759
Ooh very nice and thanks for posting – how many did you get?
I’ve checked all the journal databases I have access to and have been unable to locate a single paper discussing life history, biology, ecology, etc. of any Doryichthys sp. never mind D. boaja! There’s nothing of use in Roberts (1989), Rainboth (1996), Kottelat (2001) or Kottelat & Widjanarti (2005) although the species is mentioned briefly in each one. Seems this genus remains largely unstudied sorry.
February 5, 2011 at 1:26 pm #340765Perhaps needs its own thread, but how to tell between breuseghemi and caudimaculatus?, because I’d call that fish a “caudimac” based on how I’ve been told to tell them apart.
February 5, 2011 at 2:04 pm #340769QUOTE (coelacanth @ Feb 5 2011, 02:09 PM) < {POST_SNAPBACK}>Perhaps needs its own threadSorted.
February 6, 2011 at 6:47 pm #340783February 7, 2011 at 3:27 pm #340811HI Guys!
I still insist it is breuseghemi for me.There are visible differences in shape colour of fins and whole body! But I am young and long road to pass…
February 7, 2011 at 6:33 pm #340821QUOTE (hambriento @ Feb 7 2011, 03:10 PM) < {POST_SNAPBACK}>I still insist it is breuseghemi for me.There are visible differences in shape colour of fins and whole body! But I am young and long road to pass…February 10, 2011 at 6:15 pm #340924OK, here’s my recollections, readings, mumblings, call them what you will…
Fish used to come in from the Congo either as un-named contaminants or as Phenacogrammus altus. These were the fish now on here as Bathyaethiops breuseghemi.
More rarely another fish used to come in, similar but not as attractive, these are what we are now calling Bathyaethiops caudomaculatus.
I remember quite recently when breuseghemi were on the lists, at high prices, with quite a bit of fanfare, when they arrived I went along to see them and kind of went “Oh, they’re just altus, had them before, tough as old boots”. Still stunning fish though, and they live a long time and I bet are easy to breed if you get a decent number together.
We have Boulenger’s FW Fishes of Africa here, and the figure of Micralestes altus (now P. altus) shows a deep-bodied fish with a rounded caudal spot (the text is slightly ambiguous here). The text doesn’t mention any distinctive colours other than the spot, but preserved specimens can lose colour. There are scale counts and meristics if anyone wants them.
Baensch 1-5 has pictures of “all three”.
One is the fish we are here calling breuseghemi and labelled as such, one is the fish we are calling caudomaculatus and labelled as such. Of the other two labelled as caudomaculatus, one is definitely of the fish we are calling breuseghemi, the other also looks to be but it’s a poor picture with too much side reflection.
The picture of Phenacogrammus altus, IMO, could very easily simply be a poor image of an older specimen of the same fish as is labelled B. caudomaculatus (my “fish sense”, such as it is, says it is).
So, what’s what here? I certainly don’t know.One thing I’ve noticed while looking into this, there’s a fish called either Rhabdalestes or Hemigrammopetersius pulcher, whatever the pics in Baensch are under this name they ain’t it, the colour pattern is very similar to Hemigrammus pulcher but it gets slightly larger, sounds as if it could be stunning! The fish at top left of page 49 in Baensch, labelled as Bathyaethiops sp. could well be very similar.
Next bit of interest, according to Boulenger, Alestopeterius caudalis, the Yellow Congo, should be a reddish fish with a silver lateral band which darken onto the peduncle and continues into the tail. If the figure is an accurate representation, it’s also a deeper-bodied fish….
Aspirin, anyone? I haven’t finished yet….February 10, 2011 at 6:56 pm #340925February 10, 2011 at 7:02 pm #340927Good read that Pete , didn’t they used to be known in the trade as African Moon Fish , or Moon Tetra ?
February 10, 2011 at 7:55 pm #340928QUOTE (andy rushworth @ Feb 10 2011, 06:45 PM) < {POST_SNAPBACK}>Good read that Pete , didn’t they used to be known in the trade as African Moon Fish , or Moon Tetra ?Yeah, although Citharinus sp. also used to get called African Moon Fish, as did Psettus sebae (possibly a corruption of African Mono in the case of the Psettus)…
February 11, 2011 at 5:21 pm #340956QUOTE (Matt @ Feb 10 2011, 06:39 PM) < {POST_SNAPBACK}>This is what the Congo Fishes website have listed as P. altus:At first glance that looks like a fairly different fish from the two species we are here calling Bathyaethiops, but looking more closely at it and them, it looks to be a fish which has only recently gone into preservative (it has that “oh sh*t!” look about it), and you can still see the remnants of the red pigmentation on the dorsal fin and the lobes of the caudal, very similar to the B. caudomaculatus images. Both pics of the caudomacs on here are of young male fish IMO (anal fin morphology), whereas the preserved fish looks to be a female, which could for me easily explain the deeper body shape. So, without counting scales etc., they could be the same or very similar. Feel free to disagree y’all.
QUOTEThat’s very interesting about P. caudalis – would love to see that Boulenger paper.You’ll have to come back over for that, it’s a set of big heavy books. I have to keep rescuing them anyway, since Paul found out how much they’re worth he keeps trying to put them on ebay….
February 13, 2011 at 10:42 am #341009QUOTE (coelacanth @ Feb 11 2011, 06:04 PM) < {POST_SNAPBACK}>it looks to be a fish which has only recently gone into preservative (it has that “oh sh*t!” look about it)Thought the same yep, and agree it could easily be the same species as in the two Hippocampus pics.
You have Boulenger originals? Nice!
February 13, 2011 at 2:42 pm #341012QUOTE (Matt @ Feb 13 2011, 10:25 AM) < {POST_SNAPBACK}>Thought the same yep, and agree it could easily be the same species as in the two Hippocampus pics.
Methinks someone needs to take a look at the type series of some of these (if they still exist)Bit more fun for you on this topic. If the figure in Characoids of the World (from Poll, 1959 which sadly I don’t have) is accurate, then B. caudomaculatus should have a rounded peduncular spot and the same herringbone pattern on the flanks as seen in the images here labelled breuseghemi. Breuseghemi is differentiated from caudomaculatus only by being less deep in the body, with the peduncular spot more posterior and only on the lower part. There’s an image of what is supposedly the third species of Bathyaethiops, B. greeni, here http://magical-creatures.blogspot.com/2009…og-post_01.html, and it does correspond pretty closely to the line drawing shown.
Pause for breath….
Taking stuff from Characoids of the World is always going to be a worry, it’s way out of date and it’s from TFH, but that aside, it does state that the members of the Phenacogrammus altus group are characterised by their deep body and the relatively small number of scales bewtween dorsal fin and lateral line (4 or 5). Looking at those two Hippocampus images of “caudomacs”, that’s what I see. So unless someone can argue otherwise, I’m going to suggest that those two fish are actually a P. altus-group fish and not a Bathyaethiops at all.
To change tack, while searching the Poll reprints we do have here, I came across a fish called Dundocharax from Angola, which looks like a cross between Distichodus decemmaculatus and Elachocharax, and I want some!!QUOTEYou have Boulenger originals? Nice!
Yeah, they’re lurvely! I just have to keep an eye on them, if he’s not trying to sell them he’s trying to colour them in with crayons….AuthorPostsYou must be logged in to reply to this topic.
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