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

GWLANG at ccmail.monsanto.com
Mon, 13 May 1996 13:17:48 -0500

<snip>
I am curious - did you ask Dr. Allen's opinion on the red-tailed/yellow tail var
of M. herbertaxelrodi (M.ha)? My understanding was that he brought some of
these back for himself from that initial collection or at least that's what I
"heard" him to say. At the 1993 ANGFA convention I was lucky enough to procure
some young fish from Dr. Allen, including M.S. rubriostriata (sp) that before
this had not been introduced in the US (or at least not the colorful form). I
got a "quick swish of the net" when he was bagging these up which also captured
two M. herbertaxelrodi juveniles. I was sort of happy to see these also as I
wanted to see just how closely the fish I had been keeping since(?fall of '83 -
notes at home) compared. Once they grew up I realized that they indeed were
very very similiar to the fish I am still keeping. (Nice bright yellow fish with
a bright orange/red tail. Dorsal and anal fins also tipped in orange/red, just
like the inside cover photos in "Rainbowfishes of Au & Papua NG") Whether we are
talking red or orange in the tail I guess depends on what you call red or
orange. You can get an idea of the color I am talking about (see my photo at
the RSG web site http://home.earthlink.net/~sbuckel/index.html) Jpegs are a
little fuzzy but you can get the general idea. There is a small group of us in
the US that has been keeping this fish going during that time. Our original
stock came from Ed Taylor who at the time was the editor of TFH. I sort of
assumed that they somehome came from Jerry's tanks as they wanted to get a
representative for the owner of TFH. Later on, about 1987 we started seeing a
very bright "M.ha" that had a telltale M. affinis pagwi red "racing stripe" just
below the dark band in the latteral line. People that worked with this (cross)
fish soon ended up with very strange looking fish as they got their second and
third generation fishes. It's because of that cross that I have almost entirely
written off anything that comes out of Florida (our fish farmers) or for that
matter anyone not closely involved with ANGFA (ie R.Bowman) or through Heiko.

Thanks for providing the list. I might suggest that everyone replying add their
full name and email address so we don't get confused as to who has made the
comment (we already have two Peters). Cheers

Gary Lange
gwlang at ccmail.monsanto.com

A bit of history - there has been an argument going via email between a
couple of rainbowfish hobbyists here in Australia and a couple of others in
the USA about whether M. herbertaxelrodi naturally occured with a red caudal
(tail) fin or whether their current red-tailed status was a result of
aquarist's selection of the most attractive specimens to breed from. There
was a lot of discussion on this and other related topics at the ANGFA
Conference here in Canberra, ACT, in October last year. The consensus FWIU
was that group breeding was preferred as this ensured a cross-section of
more and less "attractive" (to the aquarists) specimens contributed to the
next generation.

Regards, Andrew Boyd
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Andrew Boyd - andrew at pcug.org.au - http://www.pcug.org.au/~andrew
Ceteris Parbiter - Cavem Draconem
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