Re: AW: AW: Mixing Fry(babies)

[Wright Huntley <jwwiii at pacbell_net>]

Erik Pfingstner wrote:
> Hi Lee
> 
> 
>>It is poor
>>practice because it creates possibly sterile, definitely poorly
>>documented and certainly fuzzy ancestry fish. Why do it?
> 
> 
> You are right with the word possibly. Yet this is more an exception than a
> rule.

Oh? Is that a provable statement? Go read Scotty's posting again. I have 
personally encountered several fertile hybrid cases.

> 
> The problem is not mixing locations of the same species. The problem is to
> really find out which fish are of the same species. There are quite some
> fish which are thought to be the same species but who are not. In 10-20
> years, folks will be surprised that we were thinking that these 2 fish were
> the same species. Thus when we think we mix locations, we sometimes actually
> mix species. This results in hybrids which are sterile.

Your concept of species seems to be about 50 years out of date, Erik. It 
is what I was taught as a young student, but not now.

Many species can produce fertile and semi-fertile offspring and still 
qualify as distinctly different species.* The current accepted taxonomic 
classifications have proven too wrong, too often, for us to trust them 
implicitly. If that was not true, I would be in close agreement with you.

It is not true, and that is what has wreaked havoc when these 
inadvertent hybrids were distributed in the hobby.

> 
> Personally I am not mixing localities. Yet there is too much fuss made about
> these things. If you mix localities and the resulting fish are sterile, then
> you probably mixed 2 different species which are wrongly thought to be the
> same.
> 
> It happens pretty regularly that scientists discover that fish that were
> previously believed to be the same species are actually different. That is
> the actual problem. But that covers a small percentage of the killies.

Perhaps not quite as rare as you seem to think.

The bad effects are when those hybrids get such reduced fertility (often 
around F3+) that we lose *both* original species before we even know 
they are going away. When we then go back and find their habitat is now 
a parking lot or chemical plant, we don't have anywhere to go.

Only a little care can head off such problems. It *does* pay to make a 
little fuss about such things. I think it has made our hobby stronger 
and better. [The lost species Scott bemoans aren't here to speak for the 
other side, of course. ;-)]

Wright
_________________
*European cattle and American Bison, two distinctly different species by 
all definitions, are now reproducing in fertile herds and have allowed a 
considerable "Beefalo" industry.

-- 
"I hope we have not advanced to the point in this country where
  we are jailing people because the government may disagree with
  their beliefs,"

Naive Comment of the Year by the attorney for a "material witness,"
being held by the US "Justice" Dept. in violation of the constitution.

              <www.self-gov.org>


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