what type of bluestripe pipefish is this?

[Mo2]

So I noticed my pipefish is a bit different than the usual african and japanese bluestripes. Does anyone know what type he is?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66413703@N02/6046574232/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66413703@N02/6046022283/

 

[namxas]

I've mentioned this in your post on another site, but you'll need to show a good shot of the fish's tail markings, and unless someone is really up on all of the sub-species of D. excisus and D. japonicus, the fish will need to be matched up with the pipes in Rudie Kuiter's book, which is a great ID resource.

Let's start with the tail markings...

 

[Mo2]

I replied in the other forum, but let me know if these photos help. I cannot seem to get the camera to focus perfectly, little guys too small. Thanks for your help!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66413703@N02/6063925872/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66413703@N02/6063925440/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66413703@N02/6063378439/

 

[philter4]

Namxas is correct, the first photo has the best tail photo, but I don't have my reference with me to look. If you can't get a better shot a drawing could help as well. The other thing you can look at is the blue stripe, excisus is found all the way east to Mexico but loses the blue the further East it gets. The individuals I have collected in HI were pretty with some nice blue ( not like Africa but nice) but the
ones I found off Baja were solid brown.

 

[sjfishguy]

So the more blue the further west? Mine is like so royal blue it almost hurts your eyes to look at. So you are saying that it originated from Africa?

 

[gcsoupman]

Nice pipefish.

 

[TamiW]

I saw this type of blue stripe for the first time about 6 months ago, and have seen them a few times at a few stores recently. What appears to make them unique is the white stripe running down the length of their back. They look a bit like Doryhyamphus malus, but I'm not convinced that's it, if nothing else, Australian fish tend to be way more expensive than the ones I've seen.

If I had to guess, they're an undescribed species or subspecies. Not rare, or they wouldn't have cropped up in such large numbers recently. Just undescribed because no one cares about pipefish except Kuiter and us. :lol2:

 

[Mo2]

Interesting... I was able to find a female african blue pipe and they seem to have paired nicely. She is taking OVA prawn eggs as well! The male is still rather small in comparison but I guess I'd rather have it that way than have the female smaller.

 

[Mo2]

Btw, thank you for that ID. I just googled it and thats him!

 

[TamiW]

Yeah I've got a mixed species pair* and they breed regularly. I haven't tried raising their offspring yet, though I will be shortly. In general, I'm not entirely fond of hybrids but they're happy together so I let them be. And if I manage to get so luck to successfully raise the fry, I'm going to be clear that they're hybrids to whomever gets them.


*According to Kuiter's book. But he's a bit of a taxonomic splitter, so I wonder about the bluestripe species, specifically how many are actually different species.