Gastromyzon cheni breeding behaviour (PICS)

[Martin Thoene]

My Pseudogastromyzon cheni have been pretty lively in the last couple of days, with some obviously sexually active males in evidence. This guy has very prominent nasal tubercules and you can see his dorsal is split just behind the front rays. Probably from fighting.





Big nose armour



When you mess around in an editing program, you can really see how these guys are armoured.



Anyhow, this particular male just looks the part, whereas this guy below seems to be getting the girls.



He's been digging spawning pits all over the tank.





............and leading ladies to see his etchings. Note the difference in colour contrast between the male's colouring and the female's.





Sometimes he gets very flirtatious!



She looks as though she's saying, "What the hell was that?" Note that she has nasal tubercules, but nowhere near as large or numerous as the male.



I did see one instance of the pair sliding backwards off a rock in turn, but as usual they decided to do it the OTHER side of the rock from my vantage point. Of course, with the other fish in the tank, the chances of babies surviving are virtually nil

Martin.

[Jim Powers]

Wow!!!
Look at the tubercles on that fish!!!
No wonder he is popular with the females.

[shari2]

Probably should have a X rating on this one!

[sully]

The fishy fandango is something.

[LES..]

Tubercle porn! can I play?

This is quite a poor shot of our alpha male, horrible over exposure in places i'm afraid. Still you can see just how much of a stud he is with tubercles like that ;-)

Here is a shot of his dorsal fin.

Grrr, if only i had a little more DOF this would have been a perfect shot with his whole body in focus...

Cheni are messy eaters, just look at all that food floating away and getting in the way of my pictures ;-)

Finally a shot of the first female in the tank to produce ofspring with this male:

She has lovely colouration on the dorsal fin and this beautiful patch like marking on the back which she has passed on to future generations.

Unfortunately most of our breeding behaviour takes place round the back of a big piece of bog wood making it impossible to capture on camera.
It is always fascinating to watch the male jump on top of the female and flutter his fins over her tubercles.

[Martin Thoene]

It is always fascinating to watch the male jump on top of the female and flutter his fins over her tubercles.

A classic line from "Lady Chenily's Lover".

Gave me a good laugh LES, thanks.

Martin.

[Emma Turner]

Hot stuff!!!

Thanks for the excellent photos, Martin and LES..

Emma

[helen nightingale]

you are a couple of dirty old men! there are car parks for that sort of thing you know.

thanks for sharing the pictures and behaviour. they are fascinating fish

[Graeme Robson]

Superb images!!!