Sorry for the silence. I was temporarily nobbled and couldn't collect my mail for days.
I checked my facts with Neil Armstrong and there were red and yellow fish caught at the same location at the same time. That is not really too surprising - you can go to Seary's Creek at any time and catch Rhadinocentrus that are blue all over , red all o
ver , blue with red tails, half red and half blue, and almost any proportions of red and blue in between those extremes.
Neil also concurs with me that the original "wild" fish had yellow fins (not red) and the body colour was yellow too. The original body shape was stockier too. The difference in body shape between "herbies" and "tris" is similar to that between true "sex
lineatas" and "mccullochis".
I hate to say it but it seems that most if not all of our aquarium stock in Australia is contaminated with Trifasciata genes or has been selected for Trifasciata phenotype.
Perhaps the only way would be to breed a few thousand outside somewhere from as wide a gene pool as possible and then select ruthlessly for the closest thing we can find to the "wild" standard.
Regards
Bruce