Elassoma gilberti or evergladei (split from a longer topic)

The fish arrived! Pictures!


http://img.photobuck...zps75df47d1.jpg

I've never seen gold on my Elassoma gilberti before. What do you all think?

http://img.photobuck...zps899fb199.jpg
http://img.photobuck...zpsd4724d28.jpg
http://img.photobuck...zps0b36e200.jpg
http://img.photobuck...zps8a799395.jpg
http://img.photobuck...zps32de4d9b.jpg
http://img.photobuck...zps70b525bd.png

That's odd...I've seen pictures of gold on evergladei before, but never on gilberti or even okefenokee...might these gilberti have hybridized with evergladei in the wild? By the way, are they in a quarentine tank right now or did you just put them in with the darios?

Edited by Joshaeus, 09 September 2013 - 07:22 PM.

By the way, are they in a quarentine tank right now or did you just put them in with the darios?

You make that sound like a bad thing...
The Elassoma are in the 75 with the dario dario.

No implications intended. It was just out of curiousity.

Those look like evergladei to me. I have never seen that coloration on okee/gilberti. Evergladei also have that more blunt snout like these show.

Looks like you might need to re-name the post at some point, Erica! By the way, I hope the sunnies - irregardless of the exact species (or hybrids) we are dealing with - do well.

Looks like you might need to re-name the post at some point, Erica!

I don't like Elassoma evergladei. If that's what these are I don't want them. *shrugs* Personal preference. I like the wiggle waggle dance okefenokee and gilberti do.

Evergladei do the same dance. Give them some time. They will grow on you.

The gold in wild caught specimens eventually turn blue. View the orbital pores with magnification. Look at the sub-orbital gold bar on the female in photo: 1_zps32de4d9b.jpg, that's how yo can tell these are definately Gilberti's.

Female evergladei will NEVER have a gold or blue dash under the eye. Thought you guys knew that.!!??!!

The gold in wild caught specimens eventually turn blue. View the orbital pores with magnification. Look at the sub-orbital gold bar on the female in photo: 1_zps32de4d9b.jpg, that's how yo can tell these are definately Gilberti's.

I don't think 1_zps32de4d9b.jpg is a female because it has shiny patches on its body. Also it lacks the brown speckling I saw on all of my female gilbertis. I could be wrong, though. I'm definitely not an expert at identifying Elassoma. I do much better when someone hands me a group of fish and says, "this is X species, go" and I can breed them. I'd appreciate further input on the species ID for these fish. Who knows, they might not all be the same species.

I'm e-mailing Zimmerman's Fish to order some of his gilberti. http://www.zimmerman....com/Price.html I've had good experiences with him in the past. He's both a great vendor and contributes a lot to the Ohio DNR. He's actually the person I ordered my very first darters from, the first native fish I'd ever kept and the fish that made me look up and join NANFA. So, high hopes for those Elassoma. Also, I can see a picture of the actual fish I'm ordering and am able to tell that the fish are what they claim. Thin tail bases. Blue body speckles. Pear shaped bodies. Pointy little faces. Heart shaped dorsal and anal fins.

These fish in my tank have wide tail bases and I think they're ugly. I mean, no offense to them, they're very nice fish, I'm just very picky. I'm open to suggestions about what to do with them. They're not staying here in my tank; I specifically designed it so there would be no other dark fish to compete for territory with my Elassoma gilberti. Maybe I can ship them back to the vendor, I'll ask.

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Edited by Rainbowrunner, 10 September 2013 - 08:02 AM.

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Edited by Rainbowrunner, 10 September 2013 - 08:06 AM.

Can you post the info for evergladei, too? How many fins rays and opercular pores does evergladei have?

To me it's clear from the base of the tail being wider, but it would be nice to clarify with something quantifiable.

Female evergladei will NEVER have a gold or blue dash under the eye. Thought you guys knew that.!!??!!

I agree with you. I don't, however, believe that any of the fish pictured are females. They all have either spangling on the side or darkened dorsal fins.

I'm counting 7 anal fin rays in both photos. As stated earlier, these are E. gilberti.

Edited by Rainbowrunner, 10 September 2013 - 01:55 PM.

Can you post the info for evergladei, too? How many fins rays and opercular pores does evergladei have?

To me it's clear from the base of the tail being wider, but it would be nice to clarify with something quantifiable.

Anal rays:
5 E. evergladei
7 E. gilberti
8 E. okefenokee

I agree with you. I don't, however, believe that any of the fish pictured are females. They all have either spangling on the side or darkened dorsal fins.

Dustin, Upon closer inspection I agree. Perhaps Erica can post a photo of a female with a gold dash under the eye, then the case will be closed. But of course to do so will be contrary to her suspicion that they may be E. evergladei. The absence of a gold or blue dash means nothing, but the presence of a gold or blue dash under the eye of the female can ONLY mean E. gilberti....Period!

But the 7 anal fin rays is pretty much the nail in the coffin where this debate is concerned.

I wrote to an expert and would like to post his response. This is Dr. Snelson, the primary author on the paper Rainbowrunner referenced a few posts ago, that originally identified Elassoma gilberti in 2009. Here is a link to the paper: http://biology.unm.e...et al. 2009.pdf
I am quite a fan of that paper. It's very clearly written. I have referenced the distribution map on page 136 many times.

Hi Erica:

Thanks for your email. Your photos are a bit fuzzy but they sure look like evergladei to me. I base that on the depth of the caudal peduncle and the short, blunt snout. The color pattern is faint and blanched in your photos, so I can't say that the pattern is definitive, but, again, it looks more like evergladei to me. As you are probably aware, there is lots of geographic variation in evergladei. That shows up a bit in the two populations (east and west) that we included in the genetic analysis in the gilberti paper. There are also some geographic differences in morphology and color pattern. Some populations don't even have scales on top of the head, the usual "key" character for evergladei. Do you know where your fish were collected? I think hybridization between okefenokee/gilberti and evergladei is most unlikely.

Good luck with your fish. I never tried to raise Elassoma in tanks - should be fun project.

Buck Snelson
Gainesville, FL

He also said, in a later e-mail,

Based on my experience, scale and fin ray counts are quite variable across populations/regions in evergladei and probably wouldn't be of much help in ID even if you could count them easily. These counts are difficult to make even under a quality dissecting scope!