Little & large

[Emma Turner]

Having recently received a large batch of young Botia dario, I thought I'd take a couple of pics of the youngsters in the photo tank. Then I had the idea of taking some pics of a juvenile alongside an adult for comparison.

One of the new juveniles:





And here, with an adult:









In the past, we have often been asked for IDs on small botiid species, which turn out to be young Botia dario. As can be seen by these pics, they are really quite different to the adults. Do people find this sort of thing useful? I have a few more juvenile-adult comparison pics of other loach species.

Emma

[mikev]

Fantastic photos and imho very useful. Thank you!

[MTS]

I would never have guessed it was the same fish. Great photos. Great idea to photograph them together.

[NancyD]

You know we'd love to see more of your pics, Emma. It's very interesting to see how they change as they age, even the tail stripes. I keep seeing younger & smaller loaches for sale & there can be so much individual variations too. Although I never seem to find the cool contaminants like some people.

[Jim Powers]

Those type of pics are absolutely useful.
I bought my rostratas as darios when they were only about 1" long. They did look quite a bit like darios except that the stripes were dividing.

[Whitey_MacLeod]

Very useful, and interesting as well. When I found my kubotai I had to go back home and search the site for pics before I could be sure what they were- if I'd seen something like this for them I could have bought them straight away.

[Graeme Robson]

Great comparison pictures, Emma. With me, it's always the size and shape of the head that makes me know the differences. Botia dario's always have a unique head shape. One of a kind!

[Martin Thoene]

Yes, I agree with Graeme on the head shape being a definite marker.

I absolutely think that pictures showing an adult beside a youngster would be extremely useful. They could be extremely valuable placed into the appropriate Species Descriptions.

Certainly, from the perspective of a potential new loach keeper knowing what a given species will look like as an adult is invaluable, but knowing what to look for in juveniles in a shop is even more so.

Martin.

[piggy4]

Fantastic pics Emma, even in the different colours and patterns observed in B.Dario they still look pretty distinctive , the head is unusually big and rounded ! wonderful !

[clownloachfan]

Nice B. dario, how big is the adult?

[loachmom]

Great idea!! I think pictures like that could be very useful!!! More please!

[zmo63]

These pictures are great, Emma! I'd love to see more comparisons like this in the species index. I'd love to see more pictures of any kind in the species index!

[Emma Turner]

Thank you to everyone for all the great comments.

clownloachfan, the adult B. dario in the pics is approx 4" TL.

Here is another example of a comparison pic I that I took earlier this year showing Syncrossus hymenophysa juveniles with an adult:



It would be relatively easy to make lots of these comparison pics. I tend to order in new batches of any given loach species when we are getting low (and often the remaining stock have been with us for a while and grown nicely).

Emma

[Graeme Robson]

Beautiful Syncrossus hymenophysa comparison image, Emma!

[starsplitter7]

From the perspective of a person new to fish and loaches specifically, comparison photos of adults and young, would be very useful. With a scale and approximate ages (if known/relevant).

Maybe an approximation of when adult size/breeding maturity is reached.

I know there has been a thread discussing how long the fish live. That would also be helpful.

I recently acquired some very young, active Yoyos. They do not look like my more mature Yoyos. Lovely fish in either case. I also picked up some very young "Dojo loaches" that don't look like my older Dojos (5-7 inches). I will try to get some pictures for ID. I wanted to let them grow a little bit, because I thought maybe they looked so different because they are so small (1.5-2 inches). One had black, horizontal stripes, and shiny green splotches. I told the LFS I really didn't think these were ordinary Dojo loaches. Proper identification for someone new like me, leads to a better understanding of their long-term care.

Thank you for the amazing pictures and all the incredible information. Tanja.