Wild Xiphophorus

[Biulu]

For a friend of mine I am going through feeder fish bags in Mexico city, as he loves wild livebearers. These feederfish are all wild and come from the state of Mexico (not Mexico city) which is home to the famous rio Lerma.

The catch included this time a beautiful young male swordtail which is most likely a helleri but with red stripes, giving him a bit a look of the alvarezi. I think he is a real stunner!

Further look at this wild platy; does anybody know whether this is a normal variatus or another type? Sorry for the hazy picture but I am treating against fungus so the water looks very green...

 

[*pete*]

Thanks for sharing Biulu, more like this pleeeease

Any wild Guppies ?

 

[helterskelter]

The platy look's like possibly a Xiphophorus evelynae

 

[Biulu]

I looked at a website that has pictures of different strains and species of xiphophorus and I thought it looked more like milleri. I can't remember having seen that evelynae has the 3 stripes.

 

[fish48]

it's a xiphophorus variatus

 

[helterskelter]

God's spoken. Thanks Gray

 

[Biulu]

Ok, can you tell me what makes it a variatus? Previously I have only seen variatus with a yellow tailfin rim. To me, this looks like a complete different fish.

 

[fish48]

There are many colorations of variatus tail fin can be a yellow tailfin rim /tail pattern ) gray brown transparent fin.
body colores can be blue, brown, yellow, gray also stripes, and black spotted

 

[OldMan47]

With the fish right in front of you, you are in the best position to tell what you have. There are lots of pictures here that may help you by giving proper examples of each wild type Xiphophorus. Your sword does look a lot like my alvarezi but the sword center color on my alvarezi is a distinct green color.

 

[Biulu]

With the fish right in front of you, you are in the best position to tell what you have. There are lots of pictures here that may help you by giving proper examples of each wild type Xiphophorus. Your sword does look a lot like my alvarezi but the sword center color on my alvarezi is a distinct green color.

Thank you; that is exactly the site I looked at and thought it was milleri but to be honest, none of the pictures matches exactly my fish. It is probably a local variety which seems to happen often with these livebearers.

 

[OldMan47]

Local variations are not at all uncommon Biulu. It is why, when I deal with other dedicated livebearer hobbyists from ALA or even from BLA, we always give source information when it is known. Some day someone may well decide that X. alvarezi from 2 different locations are actually separate species. When that day comes, as is becoming far too common, the source information will tell me which of the fish I have. We did have some BLA representatives at my last ALA convention a couple of weeks ago, along with Thue from the Scandinavian livebearer association. Somehow our convention was well attended by people from across the pond.

 

[Biulu]

yes, I know but in this case I would only be able to say as a source: feeder bag, fish market Mexico city . I do know though that they bring in these fish mostly from the state of Mexico, west of Mexico city.