Sexing Emperor Botia?

[Mad Duff]

On the long drive down to Emma's last week me and Graeme talked about loaches in general and we started discussing the Emperor Botias, we have both noticed that one or two of each of our groups seem to be a little more feisty than the others.

I mentioned a couple of things that I had noticed and Graeme said that this could also be the case with his fish, when we got to Emma's we looked at the ones in Emma's store and we noticed that there were some that seemed a little more feisty than other sand the same difference was visible.

We noticed that the fish that tend to me more feisty or aggressive towards other Emperors and tend to be a lot slimmer, have a more elongated head and bigger fleshier lips.

Possible Male



Possible female



Possible Pair (visible difference in heads)


It could be a long shot but seeing the differences in the shape of the heads and mouths and seeing the interaction between the fish I think this could well be a possibility.

Does anyone else have any thoughts

[clownloachfan]

I am going to have to agree on that with you mad duff. What if the females are the more fiesty ones? I guees that wouldnt make sense if they are skinnier than the males. The only real ways to tell the difference for them, to our knowledge is to inspect their insides i suppose. This would definitely tell alot and help with your hypothesis.

[clownloachfan]

Nice, healthy, colorful looking specimens by the way. I envy you.

[mickthefish]

i think your right mark, but only in certain species of botia.
i have a kuboti with the elongated head profile and he is the dominant in the group.

cheers
mick

[Graeme Robson]

Yes indeed! With mine i also see the sexual differences with more aggression from the males with the longer nose and slim body. Here's some of mine.

Female:


Male:

[Emma Turner]

I don't get to see that much of my 6 in the 7ft tank at home (I think the number of clowns may intimidate them slightly) so it would be difficult for me to comment. I'll spend some time looking at the ones in the 4ft stock tank at the shop.

Is there much difference in TL of the 'comparison specimens' that you (MD) and Graeme are showing here? I know that some of the smaller ones I have do have rounder faces, and had thought maybe these elongate as the fish grow. But if TLs are similar, you may well be on to something!

Emma

[Mad Duff]

All of my 6 are pretty much the same size give or take 1/2" between smallest and biggest.

[Emma Turner]

Interesting!

[Graeme Robson]

Aye! All around 4.5 inches TL. The females with congregate together with no problems but soon as the male arrives, the aggression starts. The grumpy bugger often likes to be alone or the females like to be left alone.

[Emma Turner]

Maybe most of mine are males then. Whenever they are out in the open (not all that often) and they catch sight of one another, they chase quite ferociously around the full area of the big tank. I never ever see them congregating together.

Emma

[Graeme Robson]

Yeah, i've seen my males go nuts chasing the females. It can last for 10 minutes or so.

[Blue]

We'll see next if they breed successfully. And I won't have to cry once the supply rises.

[Whitey_MacLeod]

Very interesting!

[Martin Thoene]

I believe that behavioural traits are actually quite a good way of sexing many fish that don't have any obvious sexual dimorphism. When you see a consistant correlation between behaviour and certain physical differences then I think the possibility of these being sexual traits is even stronger.

You could definitely be on to something here.

Think of your hillstreams that have no clear dimorphism to the untrained eye. You see similar behavioural differences in the sexes right?

Martin.

[Mad Duff]

Very true Martin, I have seen similar behavioural traits in my Gastromyzon's. I just thought it was amazing for the Emperor to be different from most Botia's and have such obvious differences between sexes not just behavioural.