Loaches Online Forum

Posted: **Mon Mar 17, 2008 3:36 pm**

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

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2008 4:50 am**

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

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2008 2:20 pm**

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.

Posted: **Tue Mar 18, 2008 9:21 pm**

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

Posted: **Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:36 am**

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).

Posted: **Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:25 am**

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

Thanks

Mike

Posted: **Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:45 pm**

The.Dark.One wrote: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

Posted: **Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:52 pm**

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.

Posted: **Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:12 pm**

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

Thanks!

Mike

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:58 am**

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

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:13 am**

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

...and here is on the left

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:16 am**

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

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

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:16 am**

I agree....regular B. almorhae

Mike

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:20 pm**

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.

Posted: **Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:05 pm**

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..