Re: M. herbertaxelrodi (was Re: Those Red-Tailed Fish)

Adrian R. Tappin (atappin at ecn.net.au)
Sun, 12 May 1996 07:56:01 +1000

At 18:43 11/05/96 +1000, Andrew Boyd wrote:
>At 07:18 PM 5/9/96 +-1000, Dr Bruce wrote:

>Does anyone keep the yellow tailed "strain" any more? It seems strange that
>there should be two strains from the one lake, but OTOH there are supposed
>to be two different strains of M. eachamensis (not counting the Euroomoo)
>from Lake Eacham itself.
>
>Has anyone done any DNA work with the two different "strains" of M.
>herbertaxelrodi from wild specimens? Maybe they are different
>species/subspecies and shouldn't be interbred in captivity, rather like it
>being incorrect to breed a given M. trifasciata to another M. trifasciata
>without knowing it's provenance (point of origin).

My stock of herbertaxerodi have "orange" tails and I think we are worrying
too much about the colour. I suspect that if you feed a diet high in
caratoids, you will more than likely change the colour. I have seen clear,
red, and orange in the same brood???

>Speaking of tris - I have been told that it is incorrect to assume that all
>the fish in the hobby as M. trifsciata "Weipa" are of the same strain, that
>there are in fact several different strains/locality-types from the Weipa
>area. What then is the conservation value, FWIW, of the so-called "Weipas"?

All the more reason to define all our rainbowfishes by exact location rather
than by area!

Regards,

Adrian T.
........................................
Adrian R. Tappin
atappin at ecn.net.au
http://www.ecn.net.au/~atappin/home.htm
........................................