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I don't think this is 100% mosquitofish...


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#1 Guest_ShadowBass_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 12:16 AM

Ok, this guy ended up in my 30g tropical tank in some duckweed I got from a pond that I also netted mosquitofish out of. He got in there as a tiny fry and I assumed he was a mosquitofish (G. affinis) like the ones from the same netting that went in my native tank. Well now that he's bigger he's not looking very mosquitofish-y to me, at least not completely. He has distinct guppy markings. So is this guy just some weird color morph, or is this a guppy/hybrid? He also has a lot of iridescent blue that did not end up in the pic. I've had many male mosquitofish and never had them end up with coloring like this.

Posted Image

When he started getting a bit of color I thought "Well ok, maybe the high end tropical fish food is just making some colors come out". Now he has that distinctly guppy-like black spot around his tail.

Edited by ShadowBass, 05 November 2010 - 12:25 AM.


#2 Guest_UncleWillie_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 06:12 AM

Looks like it could have Endler's livebearer in it. A lot of the 'feeder guppies' in LFS are sometime combinations or hybrids of guppies and Endler's. Endler's have an interesting history. They are wide spread in the fish-keeping hobby, but wild populations are in threat of extinction. Interesting that a live-bearer is threatened..

#3 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 07:00 AM

The Endler's small natural range is now a series of agricultural and sewage canals on the Venezuelan coast, so it's yet another case of habitat degradation taking out biodiversity. And the fish above is certainly some variation of "guppy".

#4 Guest_exasperatus2002_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 07:39 AM

Im not familiar with the Endler's but it looks like a feeder guppy to me.

#5 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 07:50 AM

I have heard of interbreeding among the Poecilia (guppies, mollies) and within the Xiphophorus (swordtails, platies) and within Gambusia (holbrooki, affinis), but I don't think you can cross Poecilia with Xiphophorus or Poecilia with Gabusia, etc. They're different genus.

Gambusia affinis:
http://nas.er.usgs.g...x?SpeciesID=846
Gambusia holbrooki:
http://nas.er.usgs.g...x?speciesID=849

I think what you have is a male Endler's livebearer, no Gambusia about it. It's Poecilia wingei or Poecilia reticulata, but either way it's Poecilia.
But it's easy to get the two confused.
Which of these is the Gambusia and which is the Poecilia?
Image 1: http://upload.wikime...ngei_female.jpg
Image 2: http://www.soe-towns...fish, male).jpg

See, they're similar enough to get confused about. It's an easy enough mistake.
A good way to tell the difference is the gonopodium on the male gambusia. It's super long and distorted looking. Ew, we're talking about fish genitalia. But really, they're different. I mean, look at image number 2 that I posted above and examine that gonopodium. It definitely doesn't belong to a Poecilia.

Edited by EricaWieser, 05 November 2010 - 08:15 AM.


#6 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 10:17 AM

Endlers is the most highly colored of the wild "guppy" populations/species, so I doubt the fish in question is anything near 100% Endlers. But who knows...

#7 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 12:18 PM

Endlers is the most highly colored of the wild "guppy" populations/species, so I doubt the fish in question is anything near 100% Endlers. But who knows...


A different color does not a different species make. The various colors available in Poecilia wingei/reticulata are just examples of biodiversity; they can all interbreed and are the same species as far as I'm concerned.

This and this and this are all Endler's:
http://www.akvaryumd...ilia_wingei.jpg
http://www.bonniedyr...ndler_guppy.png
http://foro.acuarios...0endlers-1-.jpg
http://www.guppyklub...iel_2008_02.jpg


Actually, I want to take the opportunity to rant about this. I hate species divisions as they are currently set up. In a perfect world, anything that can breed together and have fertile offspring should be the same species. Xiphophorus hellerii (swordtails) and Xiphophorus maculatus (platies) can have fertile offspring with one another, yet they are considered different species. Why? Because there is a morphological difference; swordtail males have swords on their caudal fin and platy males don't. The platy body is also more compact, as compared to the elongated body of the swordtail.

I'm moderately fine with that; swordtails and platies are indeed morphologically different. However, the length of the sword varies. From the extremely long Xiphophorus alvarezi (which can fertile-ly reproduce with hellerii) to the tiny nubbin you see on the pet store "swordtail" that is descended more from platies than swordtails, the whole determination of which fish is a swordtail and which is a platy is completely arbitrary. And then you throw things like those mutant "balloon platies" into the mix, which look nothing like the morphological standard for Xiphophorus maculatus, and I gotta say, I think the world's gone crazy with its naming systems. This is getting ridiculous. It should be that if it can interbreed fertilely, it's the same species. The end. And everything else is a regional morph.

It's such a sliding slope. At what point is something a different species? When it looks slightly different? When it 'breeds true'? If so, then why not have a red swordtail be a different species than a black one be a different species than a clear one? *headdesk* This, people, this is why I'm not a biology major. I can't stand the taxonomy system. It drives me crazy.

Edited by EricaWieser, 05 November 2010 - 12:29 PM.


#8 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 12:39 PM

In a perfect world, anything that can breed together and have fertile offspring should be the same species.


It actually doesn't quite work like that. The part about species being able to breed includes separation due to spatial, habitat, or even behavioral considerations. There are a lot of species that can hybridize but in a natural setting do not because they don't encounter each other. Plants do this a lot - for example, North American species can often hybridize with Asian species of the same genus, and produce viable offspring. But they don't without human intervention. That's how we get a lot of the hybrids in the nursery trade - people bring together compatible species that normally would not encounter one another. This sort of separation can even happen in the same geographic region - say, for example a bird that nests high in the rainforest canopy might be compatible with a bird that nests on the ground, but their behavior is so different that they normally don't meet.

#9 Guest_ashtonmj_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 12:47 PM

Looks like the typical feeder "guppy", which probably is just a mess of Poecilid genes anyways.

We shouldn't be confusing breeds with species either, and especially the trade names being given to selected breeds that don't even hold the water of an 'official' common name, their just clever marketing tools. That doesn't even begin to touch convergent morphology, clinal variation, or phenotypic variation.

#10 Guest_andyavram_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 03:50 PM

Erica,

Unfortunately it is not even close to a perfect world and no one definition of what consitutes a species perfectly encloses all species. Which is why we have multiple species defitions, taxonomy is always in flux and everyone from the amateurs to the experts are constantly fighting over things. For examples of some wacky things look into the 'hybrid' ambystomatid salamander complex, ring species (Herring Gull to Lesser Black-backed is a classic case), etc... And plants play by their own rules even more than animals.

Not sure how it is in the fish world but herp taxonomy is being rendered ridiculous with the current use of mtDNA. If it hasn't hit the fish world yet, pray it doesn't.

This post has gotten a little off topic. I agree - Guppy.

Andy

#11 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 05 November 2010 - 05:07 PM

Andy, mtDNA is used in a big way in fish systematics. Participants on the Forum have extensive publication records with this, including both Dave Neely and Tom Near. It's not necessarily "revealed truth" by itself but it's certainly a major piece of evidence for understanding evolutionary history and relationships. It's certainly part of separating say, the western populations of "black nosed dace" from the eastern populations into the two currently recognized species, which are still mutually interfertile but rarely interbreed because of physical (allopatric) separation if nothing else.

#12 Guest_ShadowBass_*

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Posted 06 November 2010 - 09:04 PM

I just thought it odd to get this little guppy, 100% pure or not, came out of this particular pond since I've never seen any guppies in it. I've netted a lot of mosquitofish for feeders and as far as I know all were mosquitofish like the two I have in my native tank currently. I guess someone decided they had too many guppies and dumped 'em. Kind of annoying since this pond isn't completely isolated and flows into a natural swamp. I'm not sure if guppies would survive the freezing winters here not though.

I'm not sure I see Endler. Endler's as a species are disputable anyway, especially the ones being offered in the trade, so trying to figure out whether a particular fish has Endler in it or is an Endler, just from pics/viewing, without knowing the origin I think is futile. I think the fish in question looks pretty typical for a regular wild type guppy, but I wasn't sure if guppies could interbreed with mosquitofish or not.

Edited by ShadowBass, 06 November 2010 - 09:05 PM.


#13 Guest_FirstChAoS_*

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Posted 07 November 2010 - 12:26 PM



It's such a sliding slope. At what point is something a different species? When it looks slightly different? When it 'breeds true'? If so, then why not have a red swordtail be a different species than a black one be a different species than a clear one? *headdesk* This, people, this is why I'm not a biology major. I can't stand the taxonomy system. It drives me crazy.



None of my bio professors knew how to explain it when i asked this question too. (this board did it better than four years of college ever could).

If you find this confusing, we can always complicate it more by bringing lumpers vs splitters into the equations.

Lumpers are people who argue species should all be one, splitters say they should be seperate, and often both have enough evidence for their views for arguments between them to get a bit heated.

#14 Guest_fundulus_*

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Posted 07 November 2010 - 01:10 PM

The traditional species separator was reproductive isolation, which is often true of different species in nature simply because they may never encounter each other by time or space separations. Some variation of cladistic approach tries to reconstruct patterns of shared ancestry, which in principle should tell you who is more closely related to who and how long, maybe, different populations/species have been separated. This can be inferred from various DNA phylogenetics techniques. The bottom line is that the "species question" is at the core of biology; just how do we view current biodiversity, and the long history of events leading to the present?

#15 Guest_nativeplanter_*

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Posted 10 November 2010 - 12:24 PM

I guess someone decided they had too many guppies and dumped 'em.


I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

#16 Guest_Brooklamprey_*

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Posted 10 November 2010 - 06:52 PM

The fish is just a typical and regular Poecilia reticulata. Not seeing anything to even suggest P. wingei.

#17 Guest_strezt63_*

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Posted 12 December 2010 - 12:39 AM

One of my daughters went on a day excursion with me and had a blast netting Gambusia here in coastal NC. I gave her an old 10 gallon I had as she wanted to keep them.

She got home and threw them in a planted 5 gallon tank that was full of " Mickey Mouse " platys. They have mutated into every weird combo you could think. Silver fish with the "ears", orange/red mosquito fish, and a fish you would think was a rosy barb.


My ten gallon wound up housing an eel that was in sand I gathered for another tank.Didn't notice. Tried to raise a few dozen tadpoles. It was maybe 2 inches long and has outgrown it's tank very quickly. We no longer have tadpoles.

#18 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 12 December 2010 - 01:43 PM

She got home and threw them in a planted 5 gallon tank that was full of " Mickey Mouse " platys. They have mutated into every weird combo you could think. Silver fish with the "ears", orange/red mosquito fish, and a fish you would think was a rosy barb.


Can I see some pictures of the weird combo fish?

#19 Guest_MinnowMama_*

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Posted 23 October 2011 - 09:45 PM

I know this is an ancient post, but I never knew there was any fuss over what fish could or could not breed together. Esp, since taxonomy was created long before dna tests came about telling us that no, in fact these are not true separate species...and so on. Dogs are just domesticated wolves and lions and tigers mate with fertile offspring. But I just had to say: fancy guppies, swordtails and eastern mosquito fish do interbreed with multiple generations of fertile less colorful, but slightly larger fish. Back a decade ago, I had a 50 gallon vivarium with a few fire bellies that needed mosquito control, so on my daily trip with my dog to the creek, I caught a few mosquito fish and set them loose in the vivarium. They multiplied well, since the toads show no interest in eating them. After a year, when female fancy guppies were hard to come by in my area, I added some juvenile female mosquito fish to my fancy male guppy tank. When the female mosquito fish looked fat and pregnant, I put them in seperate tanks. The results were larger than your average fancy guppy, less color but still pretty colors, got blues, reds, swordtailed and many snakeskin (I had several male snakeskins. Some were plain, tail fins were shorter on average. I live in a warm climate and never used a heater for my guppies, so I don't know exactly how cold tolerant the hybrids were. I kept these sort of tanks for almost ten years, with multiple healthy generations. Someone should have told the fish "Poecilia reticulata" and "Gambusia holbrooki" that they can't breed. In my experience these livebearers breed well together and are not only fertile but possess a definite hybrid vigor. They lived longer than the fancy types and tolerated dirtier water conditions. (toad vivarium) Curiously, fry ended up 75% female most of the time. ( I did not cull, although I picked only the largest and healthiest or most colorful to breed together) I never released anything into the wild, I just kept the sexes seperate and let them die out naturally. Things like this happen in nature all the time without human help, it is all a part of evolution and fighting to keep things stagnant because that is what we are comfortable with is not exactly natural.

#20 Guest_EricaWieser_*

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Posted 23 October 2011 - 10:44 PM

But I just had to say: fancy guppies, swordtails and eastern mosquito fish do interbreed with multiple generations of fertile less colorful, but slightly larger fish.

I'm not going to believe this story unless I see pictures. No offense or anything, I just want to see pictures of the hybrid fish.

In my experience, Xiphophorus can breed within their genus (swordtails and platies), Poecilia can breed within their genus (guppies and mollies) and Gambusia can breed within their genus (holbrooki, affinis).

Edited by EricaWieser, 23 October 2011 - 10:49 PM.




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