Having just recieved some ANGFA material in the mail today (thanks in
part to Barry) I think it is relevant to add a little to the hybrid thingy.
I'm surprised no one else bothered to. Craig Moritz's lab worked on M.
eachamensis and found that there are some populations on the Atherton
Tablelands that appear to be hybrids between eachams and splendidas.
They suggest that eachams are more closely related to M.s. australis
genetically and that the splendidas have more recently reinvaded and
subsequently mixed in with the eachamensis types. IMHO, I think it is
likely that similar situations will be found in several of our fishes,
especially the genera Ambassis and Craterocephalus. It is interesting to
note that with only a few exceptions (usually those species that are
geographically close to New Guinea) they are always allopatric (as are
some rainbows), meaning that in Australia it is rare to find more than one
species coinhabiting. In the case of the Craterocephalus there are two
distinct lineages, "stercusmuscarum" and "eyresii", the only place that
any members within either lineage are sympatric is Dalhousie Springs and
even there they are usually not strickly sympatric as most springs contain
either one or the other species, not both (with one exception). The
significance of this is that over time fish species invade areas and then
reinvade them at later dates. If they have not developed reproductive
isolation then they hybridise. The other alternatives are that they
coexist (which appears rare) or one goes extinct.
A couple of folks have commented on my email address appearing
differently occasionally, it appears as if the ASU system is doing odd
things lately. I actually have two addresses at ASU, the real one is
springs at imap2.asu.edu, the alias address is peter.unmack at asu.edu. Lately
the systems has been missing the alias address for some reason on
occasions. Both addresses work just fine.
Tootles
Peter Unmack
Confusius says "put Rooster in fridge to get hard cock"
:-)