[mikev]

Q: did something happen to the v.hainanensis profile on SF? I can read only section titles.

Anyway, attached is a photo of one of the new ones, this is a smaller one, 3″ or so.

[mikev]

Agree Charles — DNA will not help with id’ng the fish we have … we cannot do our own tests yet, and there is no technology to extract the DNA from photos.

but having the full phylogeny tree at least allows us to see the overall picture… and then rethink which morpohological features are most important in figuring out where a specimen fits best.

[mikev]

something like this is true:

[mikev]

Means: for the collection of pics Vanmanenia and Formosiana are required too

I believe so…. unless we can convince ourselves that Annamia and Vanmanenia are anatomically so different as not to be close relatives — but I suspect they may be.

Incidentally it is known (DNA) that if you go further in this direction, you see lh.disparis / erromyzons / pseudogastromyzons.
The absence of DNA data for Annamia is really upsetting, it would have allowed us to see the entire layout. !

And blame Chinese scientists for this: they collected some DNA data for the Chinese species, but Annamia is not, so they did not bother to look at it. Racists…. 🙁

[mikev]

fascinating. thank you very much!

[mikev]

A very nice discussion and sorry for not taking part so far — a real overload.

One point if I may … once you added annamia (and I think correctly, it is somehow related to h.leonardi) you open a door to vanmanenia (which seems close to annamia) and crossostoma (which is definitely close to vanmanenia per DNA). In fact I picked up magnificent looking loaches, 4″ size, a few days ago, and am trying to figure out what they are … annamia/vanmanenia/crossostoma are possibilities.

if the fish survives (long enough for taking photos), I’ll show them.

[mikev]

It may be that after the ichthyologists examines preserved specimens they saw not much difference from b.k. … donno.

what I think is pretty certain is that the fish is a Beaufortia, so kudos to Olly for guessing this from the crappy original photos.

[mikev]

@Matt said:

Any more info regarding that id Mike? That is not currently a valid name as far as I can see.

Little info, the identification is via the CAS photo, see bottom middle here:

http://pic.cas.cn/pic_eihb_cas/ea/index_32.html

fishbase lists this as a synonym of Beaufortia kweichowensis and — this is crazy — provides photo of B.k.gracilicauda.

http://fishbase.org/summary/Beaufortia-kweichowensis.html

If you do a search on genus Beaufortia on fishbase it lists B.k.g as a name but equates it (as well as B.k.k) to B.k.

the reality is that it does seem to be very close to Beaufortia kweichowensis but the differences I see make me think this is really a subspecies, not just a locale. If some DNA data were available, we may have had a better sense of the distance between B.k and B.k.g, otherwise it is a speculation. I personally believe that B.k.g. is valid identification of a distinct entity.

if you go by fishbase, then the correct id is merely b.k. … ?!

[mikev]

The fish in this thread is likely Beaufortia kweichowensis gracilicauda

[mikev]

thank you!

today’s observations: I saw a baby riding a male for a few seconds. no camera on hand, this was *interesting*

the number keeps on increasing, but i think this is the same spawn, the sizes are identical (should be crossing 1cm within a day or so.

the only instance of permanent black color on the fish is the black dot or dash in the base of the caudal fin. it may be that dot indicates a male and dash indicates a female. Well, the babies all have dots now.

— male or juvenile, dot. (ignore the lateral line black, it is not permanent)

— female, dash

baby dot later (but you can see it on the video above).

[mikev]

My recollection too, and Cottle (danios.info) says this also.

No, I really do not see a point of having these things around, only curious if they managed to get them indeed fertile/robust enough to farm-breed.

[mikev]

@BillT said:

Sounds like you might have read this:
abstract

I have not read this particular one but saw this summarized elsewhere … cannot remember where now… possibly P.Cottle’s site.

I’m actually curious about the hybrid’s strain virility…. just not enough to get it.

[mikev]

Since this thread got resurrected:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXSVFB_D93k

What was it about the tail being V-shaped above? Is this another way to sex them? (My group seems 1m/7f and I suspect some of the “females” are suppressed males)

[mikev]

Bill, thanks for the paper, let me read it and get back on this, the subject is really interesting.

As for Glo-fish — actually nothing to say here, I don’t have the key information about what was done there.

Specifically:

We do not know if the original glo fish (OGF) had multiple copies of the gene or not. It may be that they inserted the gene into multiple eggs but then selected one that has exactly one copy of the gene. No info.
If the OGF had mutlple copies of the gene we do not know if more than one copy is active.
We actually do not know if the intensity depends on the number of the functional genes. The entire mechanism is not clear since unlike other coloration in the fish it does not go through chromatophores but likely comes from a pigment present in every(?) normal cell. (When I raised GF the color showed up in larva earlier than chromatophores could develop)
and to make it worse GF involved surgery on two genes… first there was an insertion of a recessive allele to suppress the normal coloration, this produced a (call this Base) form that is somewhat in the albino direction… and then one of the actual Glo genes was inserted (this is dominant). The Base form can be recovered by breeding GF’s against normals in the 2nd generation….I did this…. and the only things that we do know are connected to it:
1. Since it would be insane to repeat the process of constructing the Base form for all the variations of Glo color, we can assume that all Glo versions are lab- or farm- or (unlikely!) recent w/c… basically they are all the same.
2. And the Base form may turn out to be a known lab line, which would prove that all GF’s come from lab lines….

I think these 1. and 2. are really the only things we do know….. ?

[mikev]

That they came from a lab does not prove that the lab used a lab-line. The application was meant to be industrial, they had no reasons to worry about purity of research….. basically we don’t know what it, not entirely impossible they even used wild caught!
But what we can be reasonably sure of is that subsequent versions of glofish came from the same line as the first (even those designed in Florida).

I do not think there is a possibility of fading color, the line is likely the same as on day 1. (I bred them a few gens and did not see any color deterioration)

Sure, I would love to see that paper. TBH, I’m skeptical it is possible to reprogram the personality part of genome in a small number of generations…. otoh the difference between tank and wild raising has a huge impact. (As one current example on my end : Sew03 (loach) juveniles are way more accepting of me than the w/c adults… and one generation with no selection cannot possibly alter the genome. Well, this particular situation will become definite when the juveniles reach the full size… maybe by that time they switch to seeing me as a danger too…)

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