N0body Of The Goat
Oddball and African riverine fish keeper
Came across this intresting article over the weekend...
http/www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2010/october/surprising-genetics-of-the-african-butterfly-fish83040.html
http/www.physorg.com/news205404532.html
Basically, scientists have discovered there are two groups of this species, which became genetically different 57 million years ago... They look very similar, yet they have a massive
15% difference in genetic code!
To put this into perspective, it is far more normal for gentic variation to be less than 2% within any animal species...
Given this genetic difference, it is now believed that ABFs from the two population cannot produce viable fry. I'd love to know if the hobby ABFs are collected from one or both communities, especially given my plan to care for ~6 specimens in total, once I can source some healthy fish that don't cost the earth (saw some £8 ones yesterday, but what really concerned me was seeing half the group sitting on the tank floor for over 30 minutes, barely moving).
Another new fact from the articles that surprised me was that they can breath air! It does not say how they do so, as in ingestion through their stomach (like corys I belive) or by some sort of variation on a labyrinth organ.
http/www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2010/october/surprising-genetics-of-the-african-butterfly-fish83040.html
http/www.physorg.com/news205404532.html
Basically, scientists have discovered there are two groups of this species, which became genetically different 57 million years ago... They look very similar, yet they have a massive
To put this into perspective, it is far more normal for gentic variation to be less than 2% within any animal species...
Given this genetic difference, it is now believed that ABFs from the two population cannot produce viable fry. I'd love to know if the hobby ABFs are collected from one or both communities, especially given my plan to care for ~6 specimens in total, once I can source some healthy fish that don't cost the earth (saw some £8 ones yesterday, but what really concerned me was seeing half the group sitting on the tank floor for over 30 minutes, barely moving).
Another new fact from the articles that surprised me was that they can breath air! It does not say how they do so, as in ingestion through their stomach (like corys I belive) or by some sort of variation on a labyrinth organ.