Elassoma ID photos?

Does anyone have any photos of the Elassoma species to contribute to NANFA's photo ID section? ( http://forum.nanfa.o...elassoma-genus/ ) I am having a hard time finding a picture of E. evergladei from a reliable resource.

For example, here is a male Elassoma gilberti, descended from stock taken from the Wakulla basin:
 Elassoma gilberti male cutout.jpg   85.17KB   3 downloads

Edited by EricaWieser, 24 March 2012 - 09:15 PM.

somehow i can't upload my pictures
don't know what's wrong.


maybe i have an idee how you could get your pictures. simply visit www.elassoma.de.to and have a look at "Die Arten". There you will find "E. evergladei". Just click at it and you will find 2 pictures (one male, one female). the website is created by me and the pictures are taken by me as well, so you can simply copy them in here. the fish are from a german tank strain, i have no idea from where they originate.
there should be one of e. okefenokee (male) as well, you can have it if you want to.

torben

Edited by skalartor, 26 March 2012 - 06:14 AM.

Those are some nice photos. Elassoma evergladei looks very different from what I thought. They've got truncated heads compared to gilberti.
(Hyperlink to photos of Elassoma evergladei: http://file1.npage.d...lder/ee_m_w.jpg )
Drew, is there any way to possibly add those to the NANFA photo ID section? I would never have been able to find those photos by myself. What language is that, Torben?

Edited by EricaWieser, 26 March 2012 - 10:21 AM.

Tony Terceira's pic of E.gilberti on Torben's website is probably a sibling or cousin of Erica's fish. I gave Tony a couple pairs when he came to the Raleigh Aquar Soc conference in 2009. Torben, if you want to split the okefenokee range map on your website to reflect the 2009 description of gilberti, here's the approximate dividing line. In the Snelson et al paper they did not find any range overlap, but overlap is possible in the middle Suwanee River basin where their ranges are very close, between Valdosta GA and Gainesville FL.

Edited by gerald, 26 March 2012 - 11:07 AM.

It's kinda weird that the map doesn't show any collection points of e.gilberti in bay county. Did they look there and not find any or did they avoid that county? It's that blank area on the left side.

Erica, I will see if any of mine will come out for a picture, I don't have any full blown adult males, but some are still old enough to color up and all that.

Edited by jetajockey, 26 March 2012 - 03:30 PM.

Those are some nice photos. Elassoma evergladei looks very different from what I thought. They've got truncated heads compared to gilberti.
(Hyperlink to photos of Elassoma evergladei: http://file1.npage.d...lder/ee_m_w.jpg )
Drew, is there any way to possibly add those to the NANFA photo ID section? I would never have been able to find those photos by myself. What language is that, Torben?

It is German. I am planning to create an English version but I lack time at the moment. I hope to get some pictures of my E. zonatum as well but they are really shy.
Torben

Erica, I will see if any of mine will come out for a picture, I don't have any full blown adult males, but some are still old enough to color up and all that.

thanks : )

Also, I would like to donate this image to the Elassoma photo ID section. http://gallery.nanfa...+photo.jpg.html
The scale is one inch and the fish is a female Elassoma gilberti. You can click on the image in the link to get the full resolution.

Edited by EricaWieser, 27 March 2012 - 12:54 PM.

bump
there's still only the one ID photo in the Elassoma section.

bump
there's still only the one ID photo in the Elassoma section.

Here's a pair of E. zonatum from Black River, Harnett County NC, if you want to post it in the ID gallery. Pic by Todd Wenzel, Raleigh Aquar Soc. Tony Terceira also has a nice shot of a zonatum male we caught in Rhodes Pond in Cumberland Co, on this same river about 20 miles downstream. You can ask him about adding it, but he sells photos so that might not be an option. Tony also has a good shot of okefenokee from Hillsborough River FL, south of gilberti's range.

Thank you, Gerald. I can't add the photos though (I'm not an administrator). Maybe Drew can add that great photo of Elassoma zonatum and possibly these two photos of Elassoma okefenokee.
Male: http://gallery.nanfa...09_ NT.jpg.html
Female: http://gallery.nanfa...09_ NT.jpg.html
Nate Tessler posted then in the NANFA gallery. The fish were sampled in Alexander Springs Run Creek in Alexander Springs, FL, so they're definitely okefenokee and not gilberti.

best pics I could get of my Evergladei

I've been meaning to raise this point over the last couple years, and I suppose this is a good opportunity. Regarding a "formal" NANFA species photo page, I would recommend using only photos of wild caught fish, preferably fresh-caught, and with general locality data. We see marked differences between online photos of captive bred and wild caught Elassoma for two reasons. First are the simple "captivity effects", such as differences in coloration and body shape among captive bred stock. Second is the mystery behind the genetic origins of captive bred fish, especially the really popular species. This is because many of the lineages were unintentionally crossed prior to our understanding of population genetic structure and species limits. A good example is the abundance of "E. gilberti" photos (such as Erica's above and those from Jonah's), which are unlike anything you would find in nature. I know this because I collected the stock from near Wakulla, and the captive strain now looks quite different than wild caught fish of either species. My suspicion is that most examples of captive bred "E. gilberti" in trade are actually a mixture of E. gilberti and something else (most likely E. okefenokee). The same situation exists with any "E. evergladei" photos posted from European captive stock. Through communication with a few aquarists over there, it seems that their stock is a mixture of multiple "E. evergladei" lineages collected throughout the species' range. I'll try to do a better job of illustrating this in the future, but for now just know that a fair number of Elassoma photos you can find online represent weird captive bred forms that are not typical of the species. My recommendation to anyone keeping Elassoma (or any NA native) would be to follow the model of killifish specialists, who now retain locality information for each strain, and avoid crossing among localities. This is important because Elassoma are generally sensitive to disturbance, and if aquarists are to serve in any conservation capacity, it needs to be demonstrated that we can maintain species without mixing up their genomes. The Columbia Zoo and Aquarium has adopted this approach in their captive breeding program, and they were probably among the first to consider population genetic structure as an integral component of species conservation (thanks to help from Fritz, Joe Quattro, Chip and Dustin).

A discussion on hybridization is found here http://forum.nanfa.o...-hybridization/ and an old discussion of the traits useful for diagnosing E. okefenokee/E. gilberti and E. evergladei is here http://forum.nanfa.o...and-evergladei/. A final note, the pics posted by Dirtydutch4x are not E. evergladei, but typical E. okefenokee or E. gilberti (depending on the collection locality). Note the differences in iridophore distribution compared to Erica's photo.

So my Elassoma are not Evergladei????? They have been identified by several different sources as Evergladei. Ok so then are you saying that depending on the location they could or could not be either a form of Gilberti or Okefenokee and not Evergladei?? If this is the case how do I properly identify them? is it strictly by locale? If that is the case then I will give you the exact location and would you then be able to identify properly? I would really love to be sure exactly which I have. And thank you for the information!!

Edited by dirtydutch4x, 22 June 2012 - 08:44 PM.

this may help:

http://biology.unm.e...et al. 2009.pdf

i collected some elassoma recently from the suwannee river, just outside of allen mill pond spring, where it dumps into the river. since they were all from one population, i am going to assume they are all the same species, which means i have all Elassoma Gilberti. i confirmed this by picking one unlucky small individual to go under a microscope so i could count the preopercular pores. surprisingly, the little fish survived the ordeal. i dont know about Evergladei, but i know they have been collected near me, so i am going to go look for some and see if i can note any differences from the ones i have seen in the past in forida.

@dirtydutch4x. Nope, depending on where these were collected, they are either gilberti or okefenokee. Notice the relatively narrow caudal peduncle, the diamond shaped flanks with a "peak" at the dorsal fin insertion, and the tall white triangles at the base of the tail. What is odd is that I don't see any iridophores in the male's fins, but these fish look relatively young, so maybe it will show up later. Most of your fish are clear E. okefenokee, but I noticed one on another thread that could be a hybrid with E.evergladei.

Ok, so, 1st thank you I appreciate knowing the correct ID on them more than you know!! 2nd, I thought they kinda looked like gilberti but have never really looked them up, but will now, to know for sure and was not going to doubt others that were telling me they are evergladei. Now I like in the Orlando area by the airport and these were collected about 20 minutes north of where I live which is still Orlando, which is why I thought evergladei because all the research I had done to that point stated that evergladei were the only species local to me. Thanks again I do appreciate the help!

Now I like in the Orlando area by the airport and these were collected about 20 minutes north of where I live which is still Orlando, which is why I thought evergladei because all the research I had done to that point stated that evergladei were the only species local to me.

Check out page 18 of 28 of this paper: http://biology.unm.e...et al. 2009.pdf

Thank you, I have seen that before but based on things I have read I thought they were both farther north and south of me.

The area from Orlando to Deltona FL should have three Elassoma species: okefenokee (the true oke, not gilberti), evergladei, and zonatum. Mike - I didn't know about the peaked body shape and light triangles on the caudal base for separating evergladei from oke/gilb. Thanks. Are those good characteristics on juvies and females too?

The Peterson Field Guide pic shows evergladei with prominent bars, which I have never seen, and I've always thought that drawing was probably based on an okefenokee. I've seen some evergladei with faint bars on the rear 1/3 of body, but most have speckles and blotches NOT arranged in distinct bars. The ones I've seen are mainly from NC, SC, and AL. Have other folks seen evegladei with prominent bars, and if so, where ?

Mike -- Erica's pictures, as far as I know, are all descendents from fish collected by Tim Wolfe, Phil K, and you between 1998 and 2009, all from the Wakulla and Aucilla/Wacissa river basins near Tallahassee. I don't doubt that captivity can change their appearance (i see that often in shiners), but genetically they should be pure gilberti (assuming populations in those two adjacent basins are one species). I've never had oke or gilb from anywhere else, if my sources are reliable. I'm surprised to hear they look "unlike anything you would find in nature." To me they look the same as my original wild stock, which unfortunately I dont have pictures of. Erica, did you get any from another source?