Kuhlis can be weird

[cybermeez]

This is a true P. myersi:

OK, I actually get this part. This is one of two loaches I got yesterday, and I have one more of this *variation*. To me, one distinctive characteristic is that the white(that is yellow/orange) stripes are lines of more or less fixed width, Cybermeez' semicincta has them expanding toward the bottom.

The problem is that the rest (non-true myersi) IMO do not represent one group, there are more distinctive characteristics. And I'm almost sure that a couple of the largest I have do not fit the 'true P.myersi' picture.

You are going to drive yourself mad. Kuhli patterns can vary a lot, even between members of the same species. Some individuals are easy to identify. With others it's more a matter of narrowing it down to what they are not. If you take a single individual, compare it to all the species descriptions, throw out the ones where a criteria (like nasal barbles) don't match you'll usually get it down to two species descriptions. It gets a little tougher from there, but the one that has the most matching criteria is the most likely answer. After you've been around kuhlis for a while it gets easier to tell them apart. Though even I'd have to give an adult P. malayana more than a cursory look to be really certain it wasn't P. semicincta. The 2nd stripe is the give away. But have you ever tried to look under a live kuhli's chin?

[cybermeez]

Either I'm very dumb, or the classification is not very clear. OK, my favorite loach:



The lines are parallel, so it is a myersi.
But it is only 2", so it is probably semicinctus.
But the bars go all the way to the belly, so it is a myersi
(this one is also certainly from Thailand)
----

It is this one, since I have the picture handy. I'll look for more later.

The photo is blurry, but I'd say (if it's not just greyed out) that it's a hypomelanistic, juvenile P. myersi. Size is not a reliable indicator unless you know you are dealing with an adult individual.

BTW P. myersi comes from Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

[Martin Thoene]

OMG...it is a worse mess than I thought.... I guess you saw
http://www.geocities.com/rasbora2004/loach.html

Yeah Mike, think we've all seen Michael Lo's site. You will find once you read that paper that particularly with P. shelfordi, the differences are totally amazing within one species.

My P. piperata were imported as P. shelfordi as they appear like one of the colour phases of that species. But once you see them, the distinctions of P. piperata that are in that paper become clear.

It is P. semicincta.....indeed a typo.

And no, LOL is not the "definitive reference to at least the common species". Of course it should be. Much of the Species Index here is way old and way out of date. It does not recognize the shakeup of Botia done by Kottellat or the recent Balitoridae revisions and new descriptions. That's why it is the highest priority of a group of us to get in there first as part of a site-wide update once Jeff Shafer makes that possible. Work in progress.

Martin.

[Martin Thoene]

Kuhli with Eggs

This photograph is earmarked for use in the Loach Book and therefore I have "Modified" it for use here. It's a fine example of the awesome photography of Ken Childs, and will give some idea of what to expect once the book hits the shops.

It clearly shows how easily some kuhlis are to identify as carrying eggs.



Martin.

[mikev]

---finishing the pattern-shifting story----(see above)

What I believe was happenning is this:

(an aside) There are two terms in use: amelanistic and hypomelanistic; they are nearly synonymous, but not quite. The khuli above really has no melanin in the body (so I'll use amelanistic for him); but if you look through hypomelanistic forms (for example, google) of other fish and reptiles you will see that it is much more common to have partial melanin absense: a couple of black patches, for example. I've seen shark pictures like this as well as snakes.

Now, it seems that Khuli have frequent mutations in the melanin gene; amelanistic forms are not all that rare. So why not hypomelanistic forms as well? These are your shape-shifters.

I'm fairly certain that what I saw happening with my khuli was redistribution of melanin: he started with half-intensity bars and somehow the pigment condensed into smaller irregular areas of full pigmentation. That's it.

Not a new subspecies, just one gene mutation.

Of course, I cannot prove this now: I assumed that the loach is about to die from some stupid disease and did not even try to make pictures.

This is about 99% of what I know about this, the remaining 1% is a strange abnormality on a CL which is probably linked to this (CL's do use the same pigments...).

[Mark in Vancouver]

Nice watermark there, Martin.

[mikev]

Kuhli with Eggs

...
It clearly shows how easily some kuhlis are to identify as carrying eggs.

Uhu. Got probably six like this right now.

"Juvenile" amelo Myersi lives in a knot with three gravid Semicincta's I think..(already turned off the tank lights...will look tomorrow more carefully...). Very funny. Darn.

I don't know if it is a juvenile, btw, I had him since late August. He did grow a little, but he is not going to be 3" for sure, and I don't think he has a parasitic infection to stunt his growth. So it is full grown or nearly so.

[mikev]

You are going to drive yourself mad.

Not "are going", but "did" . I looked through a few hundred khulis carefully trying to find the pattern of the patterns....The 19 khulis in my tank are mostly not random, but were chosen to show the variations...and I'm going to go through the next 100 probably on Monday.

I think I understand the idea of P.semicincta vs P.myersi more a less...thank you very much for the explanation, I'm going to reread it tomorrow (when the brain activity resumes and I can see the khulis better) and then probably ask more.

(I'm certain that I will still ask what is the right number of species involved but I promise not to promote ID on this thread ).

[mikev]

...nobody seems to react so let me repeat this just in case someone has the answer....

what color are javanicus eggs?

(the reason for asking is that I think I see green tint through one of the black khulis here....)

[Mark in Vancouver]

Two points...

One, I don't think it will be helpful for you to examine a batch of 100 kuhlis looking for a different species. They are geographically evolved, IMO. Sometimes you get a batch of semicincta, sometimes it's myersi, and sometimes you're a lucky $%%#@& like Martin, and you turn up a whole batch of truly exceptional fish, imported largely by mistake.

Two, the colour of P. javanicus eggs is not common knowldege. Even though some species of loaches seem to enter a gravid phase more readily than others, I have not personally heard of P. javanicus doing so on this forum.

We have to accept that although we pool our knowledge here, it is horribly incomplete. I expect that the genus Pangio will undergo several (more) revisions in the future. That is to say that like certain hillstream species, the best of what we think we know frequently turns out to be incorrect.

And finally, consider a species tank with lots of one species, from one area, that can reveal the true nature of what they're like, and how they interact. I'm (personally) a little turned off by trying to collect one of each - or even several of each. I feel it's not the ideal approach to loaches, even kuhlis. That's me being judgemental, nothing more.

There is something to be said for geographically specific tanks. Southeast Asia is not geographically specific, in my mind. I have some blended tanks and some that I try to maintain with more rigour this way.

[mikev]

Two points...

One, I don't think it will be helpful for you to examine a batch of 100 kuhlis looking for a different species. They are geographically evolved, IMO. Sometimes you get a batch of semicincta, sometimes it's myersi, and sometimes you're a lucky $%%#@& like Martin, and you turn up a whole batch of truly exceptional fish, imported largely by mistake.

It will be helpful to me. To start with, this would allow me to see if I understood Cybermeez' instructions. Secondly, as I wrote above, I think this will be a shipment from one area from Thailand (I will ask more questions this time), so in theory it should be primarily P.myersi. I don't expect to discover a new species (albeit one of the khuli shipments before included a Schistura I could not id), but maybe I can add a little to my understanding of how the patterns play out.

Two, the colour of P. javanicus eggs is not something you should request as though it were common knowldege. Even though some species of loaches seem to enter a gravid phase more readily than others, I have not personally heard of P. javanicus doing so on this forum.

My apologies if this sounded like a request...it did not occur to me that this is something uncommon. I'm nearly positive that this is what I got. It is the same green, but it is much less prominent than with Myersi, and this khuli is only very slightly fatter than the rest. Hopefully, I'll be able to make a picture (again, it is the "deep inside the tank" case).

APPEND. Real darn. I just realized that this probably means setting up a small javanicus tank too is also in order...I'm running out of space....

And finally, consider a species tank with lots of one species, from one area, that can reveal the true nature of what they're like, and how they interact. I'm (personally) a little turned off by trying to collect one of each - or even several of each. I feel it's not the ideal approach to loaches, even kuhlis. That's me being judgemental, nothing more.

The species tank is the idea, I've been even asking about it! The problem is that I cannot determine the exact area the fish came from, so I went by whatever I thought were subspecies characteristics. With what appeared on this thread today it may become possible for me to separate Myersi from Semicincta.

As for can reveal the true nature of what they're like, and how they interact -- you may be more than right here. I don't know if you noticed my post on the Kush' thread about the strange khuli behavior similar to his video. Well, the khulis involved were from the same shipment, likely the same area (not the case in my other tanks), and they interracted in a far more interesting way.

[mikev]

Two more items, before I forgot.

1. On pattern shifting as stress: my pattern-shifter seemed quite weak comparing to the other khulis during the first two months of the change. (My "test" for weak khuli: if it tries to swim, watch how it lands, if it simply drops down, things are quite bad.)

2. On melanin redistribution and CL connection. Let me hijack this thread a little: this is my new CL again:



Look carefully to the NW of the spot: it is a weak melanin "connection" to the stripe the spot should belong to. If I'm right about weak melanin areas dissipating, in a few months this area should be either yellow or black....and I wonder a bit if the reason why this CL is so stressed may have to with a pattern change.

[mikev]

OK, i have to admit that I'm lost a bit. Some khulis classify some don't.

Here is one example that does not classify all that well:



Call the khulis 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, right to left; ignore the one in the background.

The 1st and the 3rd khulis are supposed to be P.semicincta, If I got this right. The 3rd khuli is slightly gravid, as you can see. The 1st khuli on the top picture, btw, is fairly long, toward 3in and I think growing still, but ok, perhaps it is a superlong P.Seminicta.

The middle khuli (this is the new one I picked up on Wed.) is problematic. It is very large, it has very nice orange, and some stripes go very low (in fact, there are melanin spots in the middle of the belly, seen below) ==> P.myersi. But the stripes are totally irregular, in P.semicincta's way.



The other side of the same khuli is even more irregular, unfortunately I could not get it to turn to show it fully.



So it is P. Myersi or P. Semicincta ?????

And is there a strong reason to think that P. Myersi and P. Semicincta are really different species or even sub-species? Obvious presence of intermediate forms seems to indicate that either there are more types, or there are P. Myersi-P. Semicincta hybrids (which would mean they are really not that different).

An example of a problem I have here: why are we dismissing Orange in CL as a minor feature, possibly a regional variation, and believe it to be significant in the Khuli cluster?

[cybermeez]

So it is P. Myersi or P. Semicincta ?????

And is there a strong reason to think that P. Myersi and P. Semicincta are really different species or even sub-species? Obvious presence of intermediate forms seems to indicate that either there are more types, or there are P. Myersi-P. Semicincta hybrids (which would mean they are really not that different).

An example of a problem I have here: why are we dismissing Orange in CL as a minor feature, possibly a regional variation, and believe it to be significant in the Khuli cluster?

They aren't great photos so it's hard to tell for sure, but based on the most current publications, the loach in question is probably P. semicincta.

In Koetlatt's paper read he descriptions very closely. Here is a key sentence from the P. myersi description: "Pangio myersi (Harry, 1949) is easily distinguished by its colour pattern consisting of ca. 8-11 broad, quadrangular and very regular black bars on an orange background."

Your loach's bars are somewhat quadrangular but also broken and uneven (i.e. irregular).

It would be easier to be more certain if you can get clear, full body length photos of both sides of the fish. The tail in these isn't fully visible and I can't really see the marks on it.

I like to think of a kuhli's stripes as being similar to those of tigers. You can see any given tiger and know it's a tiger. They all have stripes, but no two individual's patterns are exactly the same. Unless you know where it (or in the case of captive bread tigers it's ancestors) came from, you can't know if it's a Bengal Tiger, Sumatran Tiger, an Amoy Tiger, an Amur Tiger or a Siberian Tiger. You can make an educated guess based on slight variations between species, but it's very hard to be 100% certain in most cases.

Personally, I don't obsess much over what species my kuhlis are. I just enjoy having them around, caring for them and trying to provide them with all the things that any kuhli could possibly want.

[mikev]

Thank you, cybermeez, and my apologies for pushing on this.

I'll get better pictures; the problem is that I'm not that good in it yet, and this khuli is hiding most of the time (and unfortunately, does not look healthy, there are a couple of bad signs...). I cannot do anything to improve her chances, but I'll not disturb her for a few days.

The question about the tail: 2/3 black, which pushes her toward Myersi, but not all the way. (Yes, I've read the paper).

I like to think of a kuhli's stripes as being similar to those of tigers. You can see any given tiger and know it's a tiger. They all have stripes, but no two individual's patterns are exactly the same. Unless you know where it (or in the case of captive bread tigers it's ancestors) came from, you can't know if it's a Bengal Tiger, Sumatran Tiger, an Amoy Tiger, an Amur Tiger or a Siberian Tiger. You can make an educated guess based on slight variations between species, but it's very hard to be 100% certain in most cases.

This is actually a very good example. You see, tiger "species" do not seem to be true species but rather geographic variations. ASAIK, they all interbreed. Heck, tigers even interbreed with lions, but we probably don't need to go there. Truely different species do not interbreed, or produce sterile hybrids.

Would it not be interesting to learn if the spectrum of geographic variations described by Kotelatt et al describes one or several "true" species?

Personally, I don't obsess much over what species my kuhlis are. I just enjoy having them around, caring for them and trying to provide them with all the things that any kuhli could possibly want.

Of course, all of this, but I'm obsessed.... at least very interested. I also think that khulis should pay their upkeep by providing some answers...dot development and pattern breakdowns represent a nice downpayment, but I think we can bargain for more.

In my 10g experiment, there are three khulis (2m, 1f), which seem to be a mix of Pangio and Semicincta (one P, one S, one under the log ). Am I guilty of animal cruelty?

More seriously, khulis may be an excellent model for studying more general things.

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OFT again: does anyone have a better copy of the paper? I tried to OCR it but the copy, except for a couple of pages, was not good enough. The paper is certainly worth the effort.