Really Rostrata

[piggy4]

I must apologise for calling this article really Robusta ,oops , i meant Rostrata , iv'e since edited this error , SORRY all !

[Graeme Robson]

Personally, I've given up on the true identification with Rostrata's. You can have a Histroinica look a like, turn into a Kubotai. And even a Rostrata look a like, turn into a Kubotai. I wonder if all roads lead somewhere......?

[helen nightingale]

as long as all roads lead to loaches of some kind i dont mind

[Jim Powers]

I was giving a talk on loaches at a local fish club a few months ago. After the talk I was checking out the fish in the bowl show. One looked very much like a rostrata, except for the snout shape. While talking to the owners, they told me that it was purchased as a kubotai and had originally looked just like the pic of the kubotai in my presentation (one of Martin's fish, by the way).
Something very strange is going on in the world of loaches.

[Graeme Robson]

Since nothing comes out of Asia regarding breeding frams, we are all in the Mist, as it stands.

[Martin Thoene]

Since nothing comes out of Asia regarding breeding frams, we are all in the Mist, as it stands.

They're breeding Frams? Cool!



Martin.

[Graeme Robson]

You got me!! And Fast

[TammyLiz]

Personally, I've given up on the true identification with Rostrata's. You can have a Histroinica look a like, turn into a Kubotai. And even a Rostrata look a like, turn into a Kubotai. I wonder if all roads lead somewhere......?

I would say that picture does not look like what we would call rostrata and that it must be a kubotai. Mainly because of the shape of the forehead, and the markings on it. Their foreheads are less round, and there are two bars running down the forehead, and two running from each eye to the mouth on the young ones.

[Graeme Robson]

It's amazing to what they grow into.



I hear Histrionica calling.

[TammyLiz]

Err, maybe they're all actually the same species.

Do you think its one of the ones described here?

http://www.loaches.com/species_pages/bo ... trata.html

Or was that whole thing dropped?

It seems to me like IDing based solely on the way they look without knowing collection location is a very difficult thing to do. I think its likely that they can interbreed, because the differences between some of these species seem so muddy. I don't mean to pull yoyos into it, too, but I have to because one of my "yoyos" looks an awful lot like that second picture you posted, Graeme.

I hope I'm not bugging anyone by jumping in here. I really feel like I don't know what I'm talking about but I get the feeling nobody else really does, either, and it interests me.

[Graeme Robson]

It's a can of worms. I think we all would love this solved.

[The.Dark.One]

Hello All

As Andy mentions I am querying the identity of what aquarists have been calling rostrata, especially after seeing a drawing of the snout in the original description, and some drawings in other scientific papers. They do seem to match the fish on Fishbase (which is taken from Coloured Illustrations of Fishes of China). I think what aquarists think are rostrata, are possibly geto and Hamilton got it right.

The largest of the two type specimens of rostrata is only 5 inches long (TL i think), and has a snout nothing like the fish aquarists have been calling rostrata.

I am also not convinced about the fish we think are histrionica, and some of the other YoYo types.

Andy and I are going to write something on the subject of all these Botia species. I already have all the references I need, we just need to get our heads together and come up with a theory, some text, and some pictures.

We will include all the relevant drawings etc then.

So hopefully we will have more to say in the future, but we agree that it wont be a definitive piece of work as to sort it out properly I think you would need to collect specimens from the type localities, and grow them on and compare their patterns etc, and the variations within the captured fish.

[Graeme Robson]

Cheers Steve!

Oh...and Good luck!

[The.Dark.One]

Cheers Steve!

Oh...and Good luck!

Thanks, I think we will need it!

[TammyLiz]

I am also not convinced about the fish we think are histrionica, and some of the other YoYo types.

Can you expound on this or is it something you don't want to get into here? I'd be very interested in hearing your opinion.