The ultimate angelfish gift... and the Centropyge shepardi that aren't!
- Thread starter copps
- Start date
Luiz Rocha
Salty Dog
Great story John, I for one am against the main stream of evolutionary biologists and firmly believe that speciation by hybridization is not only possible but likely. We should talk more about it...
LobsterOfJustice
Recovering Detritophobe
Wow...
So you're saying that at this point, there is essentially little to no difference between C. shepardi and the hybrid ferrugatus x loricula. So C. shepardi could just be a breeding population of hybrids. Would that invalidate shepardi as a species? And furthermore, invalidate one of the hybrid donors? Essentially three variations of the same species.
So you're saying that at this point, there is essentially little to no difference between C. shepardi and the hybrid ferrugatus x loricula. So C. shepardi could just be a breeding population of hybrids. Would that invalidate shepardi as a species? And furthermore, invalidate one of the hybrid donors? Essentially three variations of the same species.
HomeSlizzice
Angelfish/Wrasse Nut!
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15662063#post15662063 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SDguy
He'll be at our SDMAS meeting on Wed talking about all these angels if you want to come on down
I wish I could, but Wednesdays are one of my busiest days for me. :/
Luiz Rocha
Salty Dog
In some cases hybrids are just that, hybrids, like mules, they cannot reproduce. But in this case what John is proposing (and what I think is very likely) is that very few ferrugatus and loriculus got to Guam at the same time and created an entirely new species (shepardi). This new species is valid and viable (able to reproduce).
Cases like this have been documented in many plants, butterflies and in at least one fish, a freshwater desert pupfish in North America. No cases have been proved in marine fishes.
Traditionally, division into different species is based on the reproductive concept, but that concept (from what I understand) isn't entirely based on the two species' young being infertile as it is on there being boundaries inhibiting the two species from interbreeding and producing fertile young -- that boundary may be the fact that they are genetically dis-similiar enough that their young is infertile (like the well known horse and donkey), or that the two species never meet up in the wild (perhaps because one is fertile at a time when another is not, or because they are located at vastly different locals, or one is diurnal and one is nocturnal, etc.)
I understood Copps as saying that there may have been a time thousands of years ago where the flame and rusty angels, for whatever reason, didn't seem compelled to self-select when reproducing, and the resulting hybrid faired well and soon established itself as genetically distinct. After thousands of years of reproducing with one another as an issolated population, I would suspect that they differ from any new flame x rusty hybrid seen today (although outwardly they may not appear to.)
Edit: didn't realize someone else already posted a response while I was responding
LobsterOfJustice
Recovering Detritophobe
So the reasoning here is that shepardi is found where ferrugata and loricula arent, correct?
Because I'm basically thinking, if you've got species A, B, and C, and you can make species C by breeding A and B, or by breeding C and C, we dont have three separate species after all. But I guess it's valid if shepardi is isolated from "A and B". Interesting to think though that shepardi could essentially be recreated another independent time, if that makes sense.
Personally I've always been fascinated with evolution and taxonomy... It's fun to watch our pathetic attempts at categorizing everything in orderly ways when we're really dealing with chaos. It's like someone dropped a jar of marbles on the floor and we're trying to paint a checkerboard on the floor so that there's a marble on each space. We're really running into problems where we've caught "species" in the process of speciation and we don't know what to do with them.
Because I'm basically thinking, if you've got species A, B, and C, and you can make species C by breeding A and B, or by breeding C and C, we dont have three separate species after all. But I guess it's valid if shepardi is isolated from "A and B". Interesting to think though that shepardi could essentially be recreated another independent time, if that makes sense.
Personally I've always been fascinated with evolution and taxonomy... It's fun to watch our pathetic attempts at categorizing everything in orderly ways when we're really dealing with chaos. It's like someone dropped a jar of marbles on the floor and we're trying to paint a checkerboard on the floor so that there's a marble on each space. We're really running into problems where we've caught "species" in the process of speciation and we don't know what to do with them.
LargeAngels
Premium Member
Awesome little fish John. Yeah Bob at QM is a good guy. It is really fun going to QM and browsing through the thousands of fish they have. It is truly "sensory overload" the first time you go there.
copps
Premium Member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15661342#post15661342 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by fishkid6692
aww i'm not old enough to buy you a beer. lolcan i sit and listen anyway?
Make it a root beer Matt! :beer: <---- yes... that's root beer!
No... I'll be a bit east that weekend at an event in Oklahoma here...
Yeah... I call these fish the "swimming dead"... they are alive... but their fate is already determined and out of our control... One of my life lessons is "only worry about things that are under your control!"
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15661736#post15661736 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jmaneyapanda
No meristical evaulation??!!
As we have discussed before, I have no reason to doubt the word of Dr. Randall. I would no more question Darwin, than I would his comment. It would just be great to see a better empirical device to the claims of these "hybrids" than an evaluation of a photo.
I have my just turned four year old counting fin rays... unfortunately he get iffy when counting above 10... he's better at extracting DNA though, so I'll update with the results then...
Yes... and he's not the only one...
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15662049#post15662049 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by lombard0
When I was still very very young in this hobby, I visited a lot of fish exporters around the metropolis (I'm from the Philippines by the way) and if my memory serves me right, I believe there were two incidents that I saw a couple of fishes quite similar with the ones you got John. They were labeled as "local flame angels". I never got interested since my plan before was to house my tank with only the "local dwarf ones".
They were selling it to me at a reasonable price. Man, I should have grab a couple of them. :furious:
But thanks for sharing John.
Cheers!
I do not doubt it... this hybrid is not that uncommon...
copps
Premium Member
I find excitement through all genera honestly... while it's a bit cliche, it's like asking which child people like the most!
No difference... due to the amazing variability in shepardi these hybrids would fit right in with a batch of shepardi... I do not believe that would invalidate shepardi as a species...
We should Luiz! How could any evolutionary biologist that knows reef fish argue against this? In the Pomacanthid family alone there are many examples at different stages... species or not, there are many self sustaining populations of intermediate color forms... like Centropyge flavicauda in the Maldives... and the Centropyge cf. vrolikii at Rowley Shoals...
fishkid6692
New member
sounds good lol.
copps
Premium Member
Many of these hybrids are viable... the hybrid specimens like mine coming out of the Phillipines suggest that these fish are also, as there are many intermediate hybrids that show more input from one species over the other... some specimens appearing to have, for instance, 75% loriculus and 25% ferrugata, suggesting these resulted from one 50/50 hybrid parent crossed back with a full flame...
Look at the lemonpeel/half black hybrids in the Marshalls... surely viable... and look at the Centropyge fisheri/respendens pair that Frank bred (and that retired in my basement!
)... Frank found the F1 generation to be viable, and respldens and fisheri are found oceans apart with many "species" that are more closely related in between...I can see why this is a tough pill to swallow for terrestrial biolgists... seperation equals speciation... and in reef fish species this seems to happen at a much faster rate than with land animals... sometimes over the course of just a few hundred thousand years... for instance, the three Centropyge species in the Atlantic are found to have originated from some Centropyge acanthops larvae that made it around the southern tip of Africa within the past 500,000 years... all it takes is chance and the right current to bring larvae somewhere... and then cut off that feed of larvae... and boom... speciation... cross some larvae back after those few hundred thousand to million years and you have a hybrid...
John,
Here's a question for you. Let's say a C. loriculus mates with a C. flavissima, resulting in maybe a couple dozen viable hybrids. Wouldn't we expect to see a wide variation in appearance? They wouldn't all appear to be half loriculus and half flavissima, would they? Wouldn't they also show traits inherited from their grandparents?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that in the F1 generation of hybrid C. loriculus x C. flavissima wouldn't there be considerable variation with some individuals showing more of one parent than the other? And if two of those hybrids breed, wouldn't the F2 generation also show considerable variation? We can't expect that only the dominant genes will be expressed in every individual, can we??? Aren't some of the individuals going to show the recessive genes?
Or are you saying that the F1 generation will all appear 50-50 and the F2 generation will all be identical to the F1 generation unless one of them crossbreeds with another species???
Here's a question for you. Let's say a C. loriculus mates with a C. flavissima, resulting in maybe a couple dozen viable hybrids. Wouldn't we expect to see a wide variation in appearance? They wouldn't all appear to be half loriculus and half flavissima, would they? Wouldn't they also show traits inherited from their grandparents?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that in the F1 generation of hybrid C. loriculus x C. flavissima wouldn't there be considerable variation with some individuals showing more of one parent than the other? And if two of those hybrids breed, wouldn't the F2 generation also show considerable variation? We can't expect that only the dominant genes will be expressed in every individual, can we??? Aren't some of the individuals going to show the recessive genes?
Or are you saying that the F1 generation will all appear 50-50 and the F2 generation will all be identical to the F1 generation unless one of them crossbreeds with another species???
Luiz Rocha
Salty Dog
You are correct Ninong, even within the F1 generation there would be a lot of variation. Well, even within a single species there is a lot of variation. C. flavissima has a pretty solid pattern, but C. loricula doesn't and within a single spawn of C. loricula you find a lot of variation in band pattern and intensity of the red. There are however several genetic tests that can tell you which generation the hybrid is.
As a side note, the names of these guys are very confusing. C. flavissima or C. flavissimus? It depends on what one considers Centropyge's gender to be. If it's masculine, all names should end with "us", if feminine, everything ends with "a". The most recent review kind of points towards the genus name being feminine, so C. loricula, C. flavissima are correct. But a lot of people still spell them C. loriculus and C. flavissimus and there is a inconsistency everywhere.
As a side note, the names of these guys are very confusing. C. flavissima or C. flavissimus? It depends on what one considers Centropyge's gender to be. If it's masculine, all names should end with "us", if feminine, everything ends with "a". The most recent review kind of points towards the genus name being feminine, so C. loricula, C. flavissima are correct. But a lot of people still spell them C. loriculus and C. flavissimus and there is a inconsistency everywhere.
HomeSlizzice
Angelfish/Wrasse Nut!
Ok well when will you be back in Cali? Because I'd love to talk to you.
LobsterOfJustice
Recovering Detritophobe
I was just thinking this the other day, I forgot what dictated the ending of the species name. I was specifically thinking about interruptus/interrupta... but you do see a lot of variation in centropyge, I guess because its not a common latin ending (no ambiguity on the gender of pomacanthus for example).
Luiz,
Apparently it has been resolved that the Greek word Centropyge is feminine. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that all Latin species names must be changed to first declension feminine form (-a). Dr. Gerald Allen first started using the feminine ending (-a) for all Latin-derived species names in the Centropyge genus about ten years ago and he is cited in Fishbase and ITIS as the source. However, not everyone agrees with him on all of those changes. The Germans in particular disagree (see Schindler and Schneidewind 2001; also Schneidewind, Volume One, Number 6, Coral magazine, Dec. 2004/Jan. 2005 issue, page 28).
According to Frank Schneidewind, only the descriptive species follow the gender of the genus name (example: what was bispinosus is now bispinosa; substantive species names (example: loriculus) or dedicatory names (example: heraldi, eibli, etc.) remain unchanged. I verified that by looking up the International Rules for Nomenclature, which are available in full online.
I suppose the next question is whether loriculus is substantive or descriptive and that depends on where it came from. Do you happen to know? The only thing I could find online is that Loriculus is the genus name of a genus of hanging parrots. Schneidewind is convinced that it is substantive. If he is correct, then it shouldn't have been changed from masculine to feminine.
The one that irritates me the most is the faux-Latin octopi as the plural of octopus. That incorrect usage has even made it into the dictionary as the second choice behind the correct octopuses. Octopus is a Greek-derived word and you can't stick a Latin ending onto a Greek word. So you should either stick with English and make the plural octopuses or you can stick with Greek and make it octopodes. Octopi makes no sense at all.
P.S. -- I hate to add to the confusion but I can translate Loriculus from the Latin as little breast plate. I think that may be how the parrot genus Loriculus got its name but those German guys are convinced that Loriculus is substantive and not descriptive. I'm just unclear how they determined that.
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