Botia birdi

[andre]

Can anybody tell me the actual name of Botia birdi please?

[Graeme Robson]

As far as I'm aware Andre, the Botia Birdi is the valid name. Common name is the Birdi Loach.

http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/Species ... p?id=24689

[The.Dark.One]

Hi Andre, Graeme is right, the valid name is Botia birdi, but specimens in the hobby (so far!) are unlikely to be B. birdi (although I am aware of plans to go and catch topotypical B. birdi). They will more likely be almorhae, lohachata, or the other 'forms' in this species complex.

[Mike Ophir]

Wow. Where did you hear of such plans? I would be interested in seeing at least a photo of a real live B. birdii after hearing about it in the hobby for so many years.

Mike

[The.Dark.One]

I was told this from an Indian collector and exporter. We may see birdi later this year.

We may have already seen live birdi anyway (see photo's on Bogdan's site - reproduced in my paper on the subject).

[Mike Ophir]

Cool. Where is your paper? Can I get a copy?

Thanks

Mike

[daspricey]

I was told this from an Indian collector and exporter. We may see birdi later this year.

Cool, sure hope so!

So i'm guessing that this loach is part of the almorhea/lohachata complex?

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... ight=birdi

[The.Dark.One]

It is the one called "Botias of the Indian Region"

If you want a copy let me know your email address and I will email the pdf. However, it is about 60MB so if your ISP can't handle files of that size I can send a disk but that has a small cost.

[Mike Ophir]

Hi. That would be great if you could email me the paper.
My email address is mjophir@gmail.com

Thanks!

Mike

[andre]

The reason why I asked is because I recently bought some almorhea. Some of them show a different pattern. The middle of the "o" is more like a "?" and the colour is softer than almorheas in general.

I questioned the shop keeper and he told me that they were birdi and showed me the picture on an old book.

I searched the species on LOL but couldn't find it.

I'll try to take some photos a you will be able to tell me whether is just an odd almorhea or a birdi indeed.

Thanks for the replies btw, I sort of forgot about my post and didn't check it for a while

[andre]

This is the best I managed to do: the odd one is on the right


...and here is on the left

[daspricey]

Looks like a standard yo-yo IMO.
This is a awful preserved specimen of botia birdi,

http://artedi.nrm.se/nrmfish/images/tNRM36920.jpg

[Mike Ophir]

I agree....regular B. almorhae

Mike

[andre]

Thank you my friends.

Now I'm curious to see a proper picture of the birdi. The book in the shop obviously had the photos mixed up.

[Graeme Robson]

Within the Birdi,almorhae,lohachata complex, we haven't seen any sufficient information which separates these species. In the past and over many years i have seen differences in colorations. For my part, i've always classed them as variations from different locations. After all! These loaches are vast in locations around Asia.

For the time being, i would put it down to lack of information within these Loaches as to why we know not as much. Thankfully TDO and others are trying their best to sort this out. I'd say in a year or so we will have the answer..