What Kind Of Bumble Bee Goby Can I Get

[Sarn1]

I’m trying to get my hands on some BB gobies, my normal source says the Brachygobius xanthozona are the best all around for my brackish tank but there are none available on the horizon & only available in the spring and fall typically. From reading a little online, perhaps my guy is mistaken because it seems xanthozona is very rare & maybe not traded as an aquarium fish, can anybody confirm this?

Which brings me back to square one, which species should I get? There is a guy online selling on Aquabid.com but he doesn't know the species, so I'm a little leery for a few reasons. Can anybody identify his photo? The coloration isn’t that appealing to me. If possible I like something with brighter yellow defined stripes & stay away from this one. Below is a 2nd photo from another online source, they say it’s a doriae.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[lumpyheffalump]

i have nunus and doriea. i had to wait till the beginning of spring and i love the little guys, nunus are smaller and have a white face, so cute!! good luck!

 

[Sarn1]

i have nunus and doriea. i had to wait till the beginning of spring and i love the little guys, nunus are smaller and have a white face, so cute!! good luck!

Do either look like the two above photos?

 

[nmonks]

Unless you have a PhD, a microscope, and some dead specimens to examine, you can't identify Brachygobius spp to species level. Naomi Delventhal, a goby taxonomist who wrote the goby chapter for my Brackish Water Fishes book, said as much in that book and elsewhere. She also stated that Brachygobius xanthozona is so rare in the wild that it's never been traded, and any aquarium books that mention it are incorrect. Indeed, Naomi said to me while we were getting photos together for the book that essentially every photograph ever published in the aquarium literature was incorrectly identified.

So, best to accept you have Brachygobius species of some sort, but any attempts to name them further are delusional without examining those specimens under a microscope. Things like colouration are meaningless, since the species are distinguished by fin ray counts, scale counts, and other such features you can't examine on live specimens. About the best you can do is distinguish between the "dwarf" on the one hand and the "large" species on the other.

Fortunately, they all seem much of a muchness in terms of care. Brackish water isn't essential but helpful. Most specimens die from starvation than anything else.

Cheers, Neale

 

[Sarn1]

There is a good amount of diversity in size, shape, and color amongst Brachygobius, I find it hard to believe you cant at least narrow it down between a couple species. To simply accept that I have purchased a Brachygobius species of some sort doesn't sit well with me, especially because I'm probably going to be purchasing online.

 

[nmonks]

Well, I'm sorry, but you just have to deal with your frustration that the diversity of nature isn't neat and tidy. The scientists who are actually working on this genus have stated clearly that us hobbyists can't reliably identify the species swimming about in our aquaria.* There are at least nine species in the genus Brachygobius, possibly ten or more, all very similar.**

For what it's worth, when you're buying them all at the same time, they're likely from the same place and likely all the same species. So if you want to breed them, buy a single batch and hope for the best.

Cheers, Neale

*See for example this quote from the Goby Group: "The genus Brachygobius includes about ten species of small black and yellow gobies. According to Helen Larson, who is currently working on a revision of the genus, the most frequently sold species in Australia is Brachygobius doriae. Probably this is also the species most often kept by aquarists in the U.S. and Europe, but B. sabanus and possibly B. nunus also show up in hobbyist tanks. B. xanthozona (placed in Hypogymnogobius by some ichthyologists) is significantly larger than the others, but it is rare in its natural habitat and is unlikely to be available."

**In my book, Naomi Delventhal argues that the Brachygobius doriae species group is the one most often traded, which includes at least Brachygobius doriae, Brachygobius sabanus, and Brachygobius xanthomelas, and perhaps others. Good luck trying to tell them apart!

There is a good amount of diversity in size, shape, and color amongst Brachygobius, I find it hard to believe you cant at least narrow it down between a couple species. To simply accept that I have purchased a Brachygobius species of some sort doesn't sit well with me, especially because I'm probably going to be purchasing online.

 

[Sarn1]

Diversity of nature be damned. I just don't want to order some bumblebee gobies & get stuck with something like this, but I would take care of and grow to love the creature no matter how ugly.

For whatever its worth, which doesn't sound like much according to you, this is allegedly a Brachygobius mekongensis.

 

[nmonks]

Diversity of nature be damned. I just don't want to order some bumblebee gobies & get stuck with something like this, but I would take care of and grow to love the creature no matter how ugly.

The odds are in your favour you'll get something more or less similar to Brachygobius doriae; may not be that precise species, but will be approximately similar in size and colouration. And that's sort of the point: to us, all the species in the Brachygobius doriae species group look the same.

For whatever its worth, which doesn't sound like much according to you, this is allegedly a Brachygobius mekongensis.

Certainly the species that gets sold as Brachygobius mekongensis, anyway. My taxonomic background is in describing species of fossil cephalopod, so I can't pretend to be an expert on goby systematics. If you're interested, and you wish to debate further, the Yahoo Goby Group is the place to be.

Cheers, Neale