Banded Pangio ID

[shadoj]

Recently got 7 more kuhlis with some interesting markings, quite different from my bunch of P. kuhli/semicincta that I'll need help ID'ing in some later post! I'm thinking P. alternans, though there are a couple in the group with some pretty wild markings.
Any ideas?




They've been in continual loach dancing so it's been hard to get focused photos, but I can try to snap a few more pics of the bunch later today.
Thanks!

[Diana]

Some Loaches have striping that is unusual for the species, so have a look at each species page here at Loaches, then look near the bottom, there is often a link to more pictures. These are usually pictures taken by our members, and sometimes show the different patterns that are common in a species.

[shadoj]

Hmmm... looked again through all the pictures of all the banded kuhlis, and no real matches (though still similar to the sole photo of P. alternans). There are a couple photos on the loach forum that look similar to my new kuhlis, with an ID of 'possibly P. alternans.' Wish I knew the collection location!
Seems the guide pages are missing some references/photos for a couple species that are supposedly banded in coloration. Makes it hard to compare, when I have no idea what a P. atactos/incognito/ etc. is supposed to look like!

Jen

[shadoj]

I came across another site with pictures that look a lot like my new kuhlis:

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/profile.ph ... 5D&id=1494

All of mine have black upper and lower lip barbels (yellow barbels in between), plus a dark bar at the tail base, with a fainter bar/broken line further back on the tail. Wonder if I've gotten a hold of one of those yet-undescribed Pangio species in the kuhlii complex?

Happy to post more pictures if anyone would like
Thanks!

[Matt]

Hi Shadoj, the fish in the second link were identified by Dr. Jörg Bohlen as "probably" an undescribed fish from the Barito River in Borneo and "definitely" not P. alternans. IMO they're the same one listed here on LOL as alternans, and the same as yours too. More pics would be cool, this seems to be a very variable form.

[shadoj]

Thanks, Matt. Here are the right sides of each of the seven, not in perfect focus but they're active little loaches!

Very variable in color pattern, indeed. Where else would I find some good pics of confirmed P. alternans?

Jen

[Matt]

Hi Jen, as far as I know no pics of confirmed, live P. alternans exist and believe me I've tried to find some.

There are two images of dead specimens in the original description but they're not a lot of use other than to establish that your fish are not that species (IMO). Paper here:http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/rbz/biblio/41/41rbz203-249.pdf

[shadoj]

Excellent reading, I knew the paper had to exist somewhere for free! Much appreciated.

I think I'm at the point where I'd say Emma Turner's fish (P. alternans), mine, and the "supposedly not alternans Barito fish" are all the same...
None of these fish quite match up to the original Kottelat & Lim description in terms of color.
Ray counts match for my fish, but vertebral counts are unknown

Interestingly, all my fish are at/past the max-sized specimen caught by Kottelat & Lim, and they noted seasonal high water/flow conditions. Perhaps the original specimens were only juveniles without full coloration, i.e. recently hatched eggs washed downstream after the adults spawned in the rainy season. I'll see how my ones with 'proper' numbers of saddles change over time -- I suspect some of the saddles and blotches will split up and become more intricate. The head barring and thin black bar at the caudal base is very consistent across specimens, as are the two vertical black lines on the indented lower lip when viewed front-on.

They're definitely kuhli-group-like, but I do wonder how they originated evolution-wise -- maybe gained some coloration genes shared by P. shelfordii given overlapping species distribution areas? Perhaps they started as a naturally-occurring hybrid/intermediate that has more recently become speciated? It's fun to speculate, anyhow... doubt anyone's planning to do complete DNA sequencing for the Pangio genus anytime soon.

I guess I'll just have to get them to breed and see if the little ones grow up looking like the original P. alternans! I can dream, right?

Jen

[Graeme Robson]

Some more pics of the original Pangios that Emma had in in 2007 can be seen on page 3 of the following old thread:

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8573

Those chaps are all from the same batch as the one shown as P. alternans in our species index.

Graeme.

[Matt]

Hi Jen - you definitely like to speculate!:D

"supposedly not alternans Barito fish"

That's not exactly what I wrote.

Interestingly, all my fish are at/past the max-sized specimen caught by Kottelat & Lim

Good point, but also in your fish the dark saddles extend below the lateral line (which they don't in P. alternans sensu stricto, although the top fish in fig. 3b in the Kottelat and Lim paper appears to contradict this ) and the fins contain markings (all fins hyaline in P. alternans sensu stricto). At any rate, whatever these are, I think they're unidentifiable given the available info.

One question someone here might know the answer to - are there any commercial fish exports from the Mahakam river basin?

[shadoj]

Oh my, I am about as confused as ever!

Good point, but also in your fish the dark saddles extend below the lateral line (which they don't in P. alternans sensu stricto, although the top fish in fig. 3b in the Kottelat and Lim paper appears to contradict this ) and the fins contain markings (all fins hyaline in P. alternans sensu stricto).

Yeah. The coloration's just not quite right, almost like it falls somewhere between the common patterns in the kuhlii and shelfordii groups. Some of my fish almost have P. pulla (from S. Borneo) coloration, just not as many bars nor skeletal similarities. My fish have the dark caudal base & barring on the rays, like a shelfordii. On the other hand, P. myersi (Thailand), currently in the kuhlii group, also has a stripe on the tail, but not the thin black bar at the caudal base, so I guess there's still quite some color overlap between the current groupings. DNA! DNA!

Kottelat & Lim do briefly question the group they've placed P. alternans into on p. 206, stating:
"... For the same reasons, P. alternans is placed into the kuhlii group with which it also shares the general body shape, although the type of coloration is reminiscent of some populations of P. shelfordii."

I'm still having trouble telling for sure, but I think at least some of my batch has either a lobed lower lip or perhaps even complete, smallish lower lip barbels -- which of course is more indicative of the shelfordii group. Unfortunately, a few of mine had worn-down barbels coming from the shop so it's a little hard to be sure. Kottelat and Lim show the wide variability of the shelfordii group in Fig. 22, but remark that some locations only had juveniles and further revision of the group would need to wait for collection of specimens in intermediate areas.

At any rate, whatever these are, I think they're unidentifiable given the available info.

Perhaps Thomas's fish and mine are the same regional variety/species, and Emma's fish are their counterpart from a slightly different region of Borneo. Which again, may or may not be regional color variations of P. alternans! Yikes.

Emma, do you know which area/river in Borneo your batch came from? I'm going to give my LFS a call later to see if they know anything about the origin of my fish.

Looking forward to more input from all you Pangio experts on here

Jen

[Emma Turner]

One question someone here might know the answer to - are there any commercial fish exports from the Mahakam river basin?

There have been sporadic imports from the Mahakam region in recent times - this is where the newly exported Rasbora lacrimula have been coming in from. But I haven't personally been aware of exports from there until recently.

Jen, as my kuhlis were imported over 4 years ago, unfortunately it is very unlikely that I'll be able to find out any detailed collection info now.

We have a few at home (purchased approx 6 months ago) that have the same markings as many seen on this thread, but they are not purple like the original ones.

Emma

[shadoj]

I just talked to one of the main guys at the fish store; their last few batches of kuhlis have come from an exporter in Vietnam. As he said, it may be a 'grab bag' of species as he gets 400-500 in at a time. He's talking to his fish guy later this afternoon and will try to remember to ask if they're being pond-bred locally or collected from elsewhere in the region before shipping. Yay, maybe some hope in solving this mystery after all!

Jen

[shadoj]

Haven't found out more on my Pangio's origin yet.

I've now re-read the Kottelat & Lim paper about 15 times now and stared at their pictures, plus ones here on LOL.

I'm getting more and more curious about the possibility of Pangio hybridization. Hormone-induced hybrids seem to be in vogue over the last few years, so who's to say that I didn't end up with some myersi/shelfordii mix? Perhaps the wild-caught Pangios of Emma's and Thomas's (and mine too, if not farmed) are actually regional hybrids/intergrade species, based on the local forms of Pangios in the kuhlii & shelfordii groups. I'll even go out on a limb and say that several of the new species in Kottelat & Lim's 1993 paper could very well fall under that category. There's just so much variation recorded in some of the new species, some doubt noted... and I'm not sure some of their reasoning is quite strong enough to rule out the possibility of hybridization between regional species in different Pangio complexes! Perhaps there were a only few ancestral Pangio types, varying in color and vertebral counts, whose genes are still actively recombining to form novel combinations best suited for each region's particular environment. Borneo and the surrounding region holds so much biodiversity and terrain variance -- not a bad setup for it to be home to several naturally-occurring hybrid zones.

There's some interesting reading to be had on the subjects of color pattern development in hybrids (e.g. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v1 ... s1071.html), tiger muskies et al (once thought to be valid species until proven a hybrid in the lab), and hybrid zones.

Really, really wish I had a lab with DNA analysis and access to a bunch of these Pangio species! That could really make an excellent research project.

~ Jen

P.S. Anyone have a full copy of the 1992 Burridge paper?

Edit: Wondering about the hybrid status of the 'giraffe' kuhli in this post, too: http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22306

[shadoj]

Does anyone know if Dr. Maurice Kottelat has a current email and/or if he's still willing to respond to queries about the interrelationships of Pangio species? I just tried to send an email using two different addresses listed on the web, but both failed. Feel free to PM me.

Thanks again,
Jen