Practical Fishkeeping article.

Finally they actually are a species on their own.

Arfie

Ah.. SO I can no more annoy the dedicated Endler keepers from now on by mentioning that they are just keeping & Breeding gupppies

lol

Nim

Fancy seeing you here

I'm sure you'll find a way to annoy them

Arfie

It's about time

*crosses fingers and hopes they keep it this way* Everyone always has an opinion on whether they are seperate or not. We'll see if this one sticks.

Don't want to throw a damper on a party, but...

When animals receive a name in a scientific paper, this is merely an opinion. Creating a scientific name doesn't "do" anything to the species, and it is entirely possible that another group of scientists will find reasons to squash the name, turning it into a junior synonym. Whether the name is widely used by other scientists is the real test.

My scientific training is as a taxonomist, specifically, of ammonites, and I have described at least half a dozen species of ammonite as well as created a couple of genera. Some of my names have been used, others have not. All names rise or fall on this "use" test, and you'd better believe that there will scientists out there looking to sqash the Endler guppy species name. There will arguments over the methods used, the partiality of the samples of regular guppies that the comparisons were made with, and so on.

It's also worth recalling that species mean more to humans than they do to Nature. All animal species are interrelated, and the species boundaries placed in between them are artifical constructs that exist to make life quanitifable and classfiable. The very fact that Endlers and guppies interbreed so readily reinforces this point, that whatever we call an Endler, from the point of view of a guppy, it's close enough to be seen as a potential mate.

Cheers,

Neale

not to put a damper on your input, but platies and swordtails "readily mate". i think that even sometimes it's easier to get a platy and a swordtail to mate as apposed to the same species. but yet they are 2 different species. they even look similar, if it wasn't for size and the male swordtails having their "swords".

Either way, I'm tempted to get a 10 gallon to have a few of these and some shrimp.

i myself want to do this, but right now i am shopping around for a reliable trusting source of them that i can get for a decent price that will ship or is in the US. or find a decent lfs in Upstate NY

Not a damper at all. Simply confirmation. How we break things up into species, for scientific purposes, simply doesn't mean anything in reality.

Sometimes we hobbyists get a feeling for species as if they are all discrete, unique types like postage stamps or baseball cards. But they're not. There are lots of species that are so closely related that they hybridise reasily; as you say, like swordtails and platies, but also many cichlids, carps, and sunfish.

Cheers,

Neale

true, i guess we need to though as it makes for selling fish easier to identify