P. taeniatus Kienke or Moliwe male?

[wethumbs]

I got this pair as P. taeniatus 'Kienke' wild. The male looks kind of like a 'Moliwe' while the female is definitely not a 'Moliwe' and more like a 'Kienke'.

I would like to get some opinions on this.

Thanks

 

[peterK]

IMHO Moliwe.

 

[tjudy]

It looks a lot more like a Moliwe morph than any of the southern varieties. Do you have a picture of the female?

There are only a few exporters in Cameroon, and a couple of them are not very good at keeping the locations separate (especially if the decision is to fill a box or not fill a box). If you are in the USA and buying directly from an importer, I would look to Toyin Ojo (www.rehobothaquatics.com), or a retailer he sells to regularly (www.aquaticclarity.com). Toyin's source in Cameroon is very careful to keep locations separate.

 

[wethumbs]

picture of the pair

Here is the pictures of the pair. The female does not exhibit the circular dots on the tail and/or dorsal fin as typical 'Moliwe'. I understand the dots on female 'Moliwe' vary from one to another even in the same spawn.
I just haven't seen a 'Moliwe' female with complete omission of spot on both dorsal and tail.

The male is over 3" long while the female is half his size.

 

[tjudy]

Based only on that picture I would say the female is also a northwest Cameroon variety (most likely Moliwe). Granted, there are no spots, but that feature is highly variable in the population, and there are Moliwe females that are spotless. The feature that suggests Moliwe to me is her bright white throat and under gill tissue.

 

[wethumbs]

That explains it!

The fish came from a reputable wholesaler. In fact people in the ACA community would know him very well. I figure it maybe just be an issue of mis-labeling.

The spots or lag of it on the female really threw me off. Guess I am happy they are a pair of 'Moliwe'. I just have to wait to see if their progenies exhibit any spot on the female.

Thanks for the prompt and excellent replies.

 

[geeks_15]

Neither one looks like my moliwe. Here are 3 decent photos of my male.

 

[tjudy]

Geeks... your fish is also consistent with a Moliwe type, but it happens to have fewer spots in the caudal fin than others. That trait is highly variable. A good indicator, which both your fish and wetthumbs' show, is that the spots are cleanly black on yellow with no iridescence around the spots. Here is an example of a fish collected in Moliwe (no confusion on location... I collected it in Moliwe). It is the image of the fish in hand. See how the spots are small and clear on a yellow background. The Moliwe population is the only location I have seen from Cameroon that looks like this.

The other picture is the most recently discovered variety from a tributary of the Mungo River in the area of Muyuka. It is being called Njanje. It is very similar to the 'Muyuka' variety, which now extinct in its previously known location (according to Anton Lamboj). It is a good example of ocelli in the caudal that have the iridescence around the black spots. The spots are also a lot larger and fewer in number (on average) than the Moliwe. Most of the spotted P. taeniatus in Cameroon have spots like this... it is the Moliwe that is unique.

 

[tjudy]

For comparison, here is a Kienke male...

 

[wethumbs]

I have another question...

The characteristics of the 'Moliwe' is very clear to me now. However, I find the 'Njanje' very similar to the 'Kienke'. What are the typical traits in identifying one from the other?

 

[tjudy]

The biggest difference is body color. The Kienke, and other southern varieties, are more solid with a much less prominent lateral line stripe. The norrthern varieties also have a scalloped look to the scales because the edges are slightly darker than the centers. The northern varieties usually show a darker leading edge on the anal fin (in the Njanje is is almost black), where the southern forms do not.

Coloration is always going to be variable. Recognizing a specific location without really knowing where the fish was collected is never going to be 100%, which is why we should use terms such as 'looks like' or 'could be'. After looking at many many wild fish I am comfortable identifying males of the species as either from northern Cameroon, the Wouri system, or southern Cameroon. From southern Cameroon I am comfortable identifying the location as either from the Lobe river system or not from the Lobe River system. But there are occasionally exceptions... and (I hope) we have not seen them all yet!

 

[geeks_15]

Good info. Thanks.

 

[aquaticclarity]

Kienke fish have a red and gold color to them and the males have a few large occeli

Njanje fish have more of a green cast to them and mutiple smaller occeli in the tail of males

female Njanje are also heavily striped-especially when presenting courtship/spawning colors