Are These Endlers?

[Biulu]

The rainy season is starting in Cameroon and I did some fishing in the storm drains as I saw coloured fish in there. This is what I came up with. Sorry for the bad quality of the pictures. My equipment was really limited; a cut-up water bottle and a wine glass....

I have the impression there are 2 fish types though, not just the coloured one. The female in the picture is about 2x the size of the coloured male. Any ideas?

Here is the large female I talked about:

The coloured male:

A picture from the top:

Thanks for watching!

 

[Assaye]

I'd think they are a wild variety of endler. The colouring is very distinct.

 

[Biulu]

I just read that all the endler's have distinct colouring in the wild, that no one is identical, so that would match then... So does the fact that the female is twice as big...

The species originates from South America though...

 

[OohFeeshy]

Since they're quite hardy and fairly common aquarium fish I'd imagine they've been introduced to a lot of places they shouldn't be.

 

[fishnovice]

They certainly look a lot like endlers but as you say Poecillae -endlers,guppies etc- are from S America, not West Africa. Possibly endlers have African cusins, as cichlids do. You may get a definite ID if you repost this to Livebearers section


You may have discovered a new species not normally kept in aquariums!You shuld try to beeed them, should be fairly easy if they are livebearers like endlers.

 

[OohFeeshy]

No, they will have been introduced.

This is about guppies, but the same applies, I'd imagine-

South America: Venezuela, Barbados, Trinidad, northern Brazil and the Guyanas. Widely introduced and established elsewhere, mainly for mosquito control, but had rare to non-existing effects on mosquitoes, and negative to perhaps neutral effects on native fishes (Ref. 12217). Africa: Feral populations reported from the coastal reaches of Natal rivers from Durban southwards, as well as in the Kuruman Eye and Lake Otjikoto in Namibia (Ref. 7248). Several countries report adverse ecological impact after introduction.

http/www.fishbase.org/Introductions/IntroductionsList.cfm?ID=3228&GenusName=Poecilia&SpeciesName=reticulata&fc=216&StockCode=3424

 

[Lawrence]

You say you were fishing in a STORMDRAIN How does that work?

 

[Essjay]

They look a lot like the pics I've seen of wild guppies. That is, what guppies looked like before humans started selectively breeding them. They were used all over the world in an attempt to control mosquitos.
Wild guppies do look similar to endlers though.

 

[omega59]

I'm no expert with Endlers, but they look like some guppy-endler breed to me, but then again most lfs only carry guppy-endler crossbreeds hehe. thy are stunning, why are they in a wine glass

 

[Biulu]

No, they will have been introduced.

This is about guppies, but the same applies, I'd imagine-

South America: Venezuela, Barbados, Trinidad, northern Brazil and the Guyanas. Widely introduced and established elsewhere, mainly for mosquito control, but had rare to non-existing effects on mosquitoes, and negative to perhaps neutral effects on native fishes (Ref. 12217). Africa: Feral populations reported from the coastal reaches of Natal rivers from Durban southwards, as well as in the Kuruman Eye and Lake Otjikoto in Namibia (Ref. 7248). Several countries report adverse ecological impact after introduction.

http/www.fishbase.org/Introductions/IntroductionsList.cfm?ID=3228&GenusName=Poecilia&SpeciesName=reticulata&fc=216&StockCode=3424

Cameroon is in central Africa and thousands of miles away from the reported sites in Southern Africa. Are guppies african?

 

[Biulu]

jajaja, It was the only transparent glass artefact I had available Pictures taken of them through the plastic of a water bottle, didn't turn out very well..

 

[the biffster]

they look like endlers to me and i
kept some for a few years that were
part of Derick Lambert's stock
but mine were wild strain

 

[chrisbassist]

I wouild imagine OldMan47 can tell you.

he normally goes through a load of posts on here every couple of days, but if he misses it it might be worth sendning him a message and asking.

 

[OldMan47]

They are feral guppies. They will look like endlers to lots of people who have not seen both fish in person.
I keep pure wild type endlers and can see no endler anywhere in those fish's ancestry. I have kept guppies for over 50 years and, back around the time I started, many of them looked much like the ones in your pictures.
A second reason I can be so sure. Only guppies have been distributed all over the world for mosquito control. Endlers came along to the hobby long after people figured out how bad an idea it was to introduce exotic fish into an environment. Endlers were never distributed that way so they are still only found in aquariums and in Venezuela.

 

[helterskelter]

Yep their feral guppies. However they look like rearly nice