YAY! I'm back!

[Martin Thoene]

After over 24 hours of Rogers customers being unable to access this server.

Been busy.....sorta-kinda sorted out the differences between Pseudogastromyzon cheni and P. myersi.

There's now a nice shiny new profile on P. myersi on the Community website.

http://community.loaches.com/species-in ... yersi/view

Just uploaded a load of P. cheni breeding photos to there. I discovered today that cheni females can be somewhat loose with their affections. The same female was spawning with 3 separate males at 3 seperate locations!



Fortunately, one was right where I could get some nice shots. Got some half decent baby pictures too.



Martin.

[Emma Turner]

Welcome back!

The profile looks great and the photo/diagram showing the differences between the two species is very informative. Lovely baby pic too.

Emma

[Martin Thoene]

You wanna laugh? I photographed both these fish's bellies during their wild sex romp. Now that male is 100% a cheni right? Absolutely typical appearance.

The female however has no red in the dorsal and is a different tone of colour. She's from the batch I bought a while ago to input some new genes. I've often looked at her and wondered if she truly was a cheni and now I measured the relative distances.

She fits the myersi profile with equal measurements......and guess what?

So does the male

Fresh Can'o'Worms opening on the starboard bow Cap'n!

Martin.

[Jim Powers]

WOW!
Those are the best cheni (or whatever ) spawning pics yet!!
Great job!

[Emma Turner]

Very confusing indeed. It's myersi Cap'n, but not as we know it.
Well....this means that we can't always rely on certain characteristics that we've come to expect means typical cheni....

Emma

[Graeme Robson]

Great images!

[Jim Powers]

Hmmm. I don't recall any of my chenis being so sleazy.

[Martin Thoene]

Well.....she's "at it" again right as I type, but only with one male this time

Hey Helen! This is your real Loach-porn

Martin.

[Jim Powers]

Of course you remember that my original L. disparis female used to like
menage trois with the two males in the tank.

http://www.bobd.lunarpages.com/loaches/jim018.html

[Martin Thoene]

Yeah...I remember. But I think that's possibly a L.disparis thing.....remember I only had a pair.

All joking aside, and based on "normal" cheni behaviour, I find this fish's behaviour intriguing, particularly as it fits the "myersi" mold and looks different too.

So now it's inter-species promiscuity? This just gets worse

I'm so ashamed at this going on in my tanks

(not really)

Martin.

[mikev]

Very nice pix, despite obvious porn contents

------

So what is the verdict now?
Are all the "chenis" around actually "myersis" or only some?

I understand that there is no final answer yet, but what is your feeling?

[Jim Powers]

Martin:I was wondering if polygomy was a myersi thing and monogamy a cheni thing. That would be very interesting.
mikev: Personally, I think that most of what we have seen are chenis with some myersi showing up from time to time. Or, they may in fact, be different races of the same species.
That's only my opinion based on what I have seen and read so far. I could be very wrong. Time will tell (I hope!).

[Martin Thoene]

My feeling Mike?

Here's what I wrote elsewhere this is being discussed:

"Is it feasible that we are actually dealing with local variations of a single species and that the original descriptions were not based on enough like examples or from enough diverse locations?"

I'm still not convinced they're two separate species because I've not seen enough evidence to convince me otherwize. My fish that look the same have different proportions that would make them fit both species.

Martin.

[mikev]

Very interesting, thanks.

How should one call them meanwhile?

Obviously, I saw very few chyersi's comparing to you two, but I believe that at least races (local variations) are quite real. The latest animals here are considerably lighter (and have much less or no dorsal red) than any I've seen before.

[Martin Thoene]

Well, for the want of better information we're sticking with two species:

http://community.loaches.com/species-in ... zon-myersi

http://community.loaches.com/species-in ... yzon-cheni

Did you see these already Mike? If not, click on the photo search for cheni and you'll see the new spawning pics.

Martin.