Loaches Online Forum

Can one believe that the page,

http://www.loaches.com/species_pages/va ... ensis.html

actually shows a Vantanmenia, rather than a Disparis or something very similar to it?

(I'm still trying to ID my lizards, and with the photo posted yesterday by Mike Ophir,

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v470/ ... imgAnch206

it is clear that my lizards are not pingchowensis,....but they are a pretty good match of LOL's version of hainanensis.
(I'm aware some some photos of hainanensis elsewhere were indeed found to be disparis, but what about the LOL's page?)

How about this
http://www66.tok2.com/home2/ichthy/chin ... nensis.jpg

or this:
http://www66.tok2.com/home2/ichthy/chin ... wensis.jpg

The tok* images unfortunately are too dark and low res to be sure of anything. Either one can be a match.

Let me put one of my pics here for reference (skinny, medium-size, probably male):



Here, if you look at the lateral line, there is some "fine" pattern around it, and there is some dark along the lateral line. This is the case with all of mine, and also the case with disparis. Even when my lizards are pale (on white background, for example), there is a broken black line along the lateral.

Now, neither of the V. pingchowensis photos (there are two) display this type of lateral black line or "fine pattern". --> they are certainly not a match.

Incidentally, there is also a Vantanmenia sp. that has even cruder pattern, Vanmanenia lineata, http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v470/ ... sp_new.jpg
A nice looking fish, but obviously cannot be confused with disparis or mine.

But toward "finer pattern" we find V. hainanensis, and here is where the confusion with disparis hits. You previously found http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v470/ ... imgAnch208



This one is a good match with one of the juvs here:



... the same fish I think...slight skull shape difference could be just a regional variation.

(The same album has one more Vantanmenia pictures which is actually of a disparis).

All this made me wonder if it is possible that there is no Vanmanenia hainanensis at all, and it is simply the same fish as disparis (and my SpA) .....

Its common for hillstreams to be misidentified. I have a book that shows a pic of a cheni but calls it a gastro. It also has a pic of disparis and calls it a pseudogastro. Look at this pic from the species index:
http://www.loaches.com/species_pages/fo ... khami.html
So, another misidentification doesn't necessarily mean anything.
It certainly doesn't indicate that there is no vanmanenia hainanensis species.
While I haven't seen your fish personally, the shovel shaped head structure and large size of some of the fish, make me think the are not disparis. That's just my opinion. Either way, they are a nice find.

Formosiana most certainly looks like yet another instance of the same fish.... I missed this one before.

I'm just wondering if there is something more going on here than just isolated instances of misidentification. It is also quite possible that the same fish (or nearly the same) has been described more than once in different areas under different names and no one ever bothered to reconcile the records.

Do you have any suggestion on how one would try to get real disparis? (This is really the only way I see to find the truth -- put them side by side...)

Either way, they are a nice find.

Thank you. So far, they are the best hillstreams I've seen: just enough activity to make them interesting but not to make it aggressive/dangerous.

Just about the only way I know of to get disparis is to check out shipments of white cheeked gobies. They are a fairly common contaminant in such shipments.

Uggh, no good.

All three SpA shipments had (baby) gobi's as contaminants, but not the other way around (I actually asked). Besides, even if one comes across a couple of strays how would one know they are disparis and not a similar species?

I guess the only hope is that yours breed again and you'll create an oversupply. This actually makes sense: create a standard line.

I presently have only one, so I need to find another for any breeding to take place.

(there may be one slim chance to solve this problem tomorrow, I'll PM if something comes up)