Got 4 gold rams today, they came in as babies… expected the Bolivian mafia to have a blood bath…

But to my surprise, they are paying them no mind… being babies, they are more white than anything, and are the same size, and color as the baby albino Cory’s in fact the new rams and Cory’s are kind of hanging together at least right now… the biggest has orange fins, otherwise they could easily be mistaken for the lil Cory’s… the new 4 rams, combined with the 2 Bolivians, makes 6 rams in this tank

That's an unusual combination as Bolivians thrive at 23cc/73-74f, and ramirezi like 27c/lower mid 80sf plus for a healthy life. It's a huge environment gap.

Sometimes I look at where those two fish come from, and wonder how many species of Mikrogeophagus must have gone extinct between their habitats for them to have that spread. They are well over a thousand km apart. I've always figured there were more Mikrogeophagus out there, but maybe not. There is a story there we don't know. How do two similar, related fish occur so far apart with no known relatives in between? They must be ancient fish, remnants of a once widely distributed group, or the descriptions are wrong and they aren't that close. The science looks good though. Weird mysteries.

I got my paws on wild caught rams a couple of times. The linebreeding really transformed them. The wilds are very pretty, but lack the blues of the "German Blues". Their shape seemed different too, without the flat flanks of domestics. They are feisty, active sparkplug fish - the life of the party. Domestic rams don't have the same fun behaviour. Wild rams are like 8 month old puppies.

You see how selection for colour can also affect shape and behaviour when you look at wilds and domestics.

I had actually ordered 3 of the golds ( I assume line bred mutts like my electric blues, that I have in a different tank ) right now they are 1 1/4 inches long, and not much color… I assume I got the extra, as one has a messed up eye… it looks like it can see out of it, but looks like a fighting or netting injury, and looks like it could heal up… it’s the most colorful, so may have been scrapping before it got here??? Anyway one of the golds, is not hanging with the rest, and has taken up with one of the Bolivians… they aren’t dancing or anything, but are hanging together…

I assume the Bolivian lineage is in most of the line bred specialty rams… since most of the Germans look like more colorful Bolivians

The wild ram came into the hobby in the 1930s. People started linebreeding it right away. It isn't a hybrid, just mutant variants from a wild fish.
Wild imports are rare enough, as the fish has a limited range (warm water savannah pools with low mineral content and lots of sun exposure).

Bolivians were found later - much later. M ramirezi, the ram, is from Colombia and Venezuela. M altispinosus is from Brazil and Bolivia. I've seen two hobby altispinosus, a blue and a brown form. It's a bigger, more robust, hardier but less colourful species, but longer lived species than ramirezi. I like them a lot better than rams.

I didn't notice that they were different Mikrogeophagus ramirezi & Mikrogeophagus altispinosus... The Bolivians, were listed as Bolivian Rams, by the seller... but if they are not ramirezi, then I guess they wouldn't technically be "rams"

That's one of the issues with common names. M. ramiriezi has been known a long time and the species name shortened to give the common name 'ram'. Then when another similar looking fish was discovered it was automatically also called a ram, though with the word Bolivian tacked on in front to differentiate it from the long-known species. That's before the line bred variants of M. ramirezi appeared with common names like German blue ram, gold ram, angel ram etc just confuse things further.
Latin names make it easier to understand what fish is meant rather than common names.

just harder to remember, to pronounce, & spell...

I think my all time favourite name for spelling and pronouncing is Yasuhikotakia sidthimunki. That's what dwarf chain loaches were briefly between being Botia sidthimunki and the current Ambastaia sidthimunki.

not even going to attempt that one...

As I mentioned above, one of the gold ramirezi is hanging with a Bolivian altispinosus… any guesses what that relationship ship is??? The gold is happy to be there ( the other 3 seem to hang in a loose group ), and the Bolivian seems to tolerate the gold in its space ( they don’t seem to like anyone in their space )

Yeah, but if you get really mad, and in a fake Italian accent say "You Ambastaia sidthimunki', you get all the pleasure of swearing without the swear.

They're in the same Genus, Mikrogeophagus, but different species. Think you and me getting along with a Neanderthal. We'd probably be fine, so will they.