Re: [RML] Signifer Fins

Adrian Tappin (atappin at ecn.net.au)
Sun, 07 Feb 1999 07:10:46 +1000

Hello Mach,
At 01:56 5/02/99, you wrote:
>HI Adrian and all,
> Was just checking back at Adrian's web page and killing some time at work.
> Well I was thinking about this bit of text.
>
>>Male specimens from northern Queensland populations can reach 60 mm and
>have extremely
>> long extended filaments on both the dorsal and anal fins. These filaments
>usually break off
>> during capture and from my experience, never re-grow or appear in captive
>populations.

North Qld blue-eyes normally have longer fins that their southern
counterparts, but the particular "long finned" variety I collected from
Lacey's Ck near Mission Beach many moons ago and they had exceptionally long
fins that sort of reminds you of werneri (That's how long they were) but as
I stated above they resulting generations never showed this in captivity. I
also have a small group of wild-caught gertrudae from the Hopevale area in
northern Queensland - 2 males and 4 females originally. One of these males
also shows a very long extended first dorsal fin. However, I guess I now
have about 50 plus offspring and so far not one is showing the long flowing
fins.

I would tend to agree that it might be because of 'fin nipping' cause by
higher population density in captivity. But I have never tried to raise one
male on his own to see if the fins developed their long extensions???

Adrian.

Adrian R. Tappin
"Home of the Rainbowfish"
http://www.ecn.net.au/~atappin/home.htm