Re: Barron's Killi book

[Alberto Restrepo Ubach <restrepo at sandiego_edu>]

At 10:00 AM -0500 12/9/02, Jeff Shoffner wrote:
>... Speaking of names, I want to make sure I'm reading this right; there is a
>Fundulopanchax gardneri & an Amphyosemion gardneri (did I spell those right?
>Where's that book?......) but they are two different fish, right?  Why are
>they both gardneri? I know the name is descriptive, so I guess that's the
>reason, but what does 'gardneri' mean?

Jeff,

Fundulopanchax gardneri and Aphyosemion (no "m" after the "A") 
gardneri are the same fish.  A lot of the taxonomic changes and/or 
disagreements that you will find as you become increasingly familiar 
with some of the well-known and well-established killies are in the 
genus name (i.e., Fundulopanchax vs. Aphyosemion, Cynolebias vs. 
Nematolebias, Roloffia vs. Aphyosemion, etc.). The species and 
subspecies names (i.e., gardneri, whitei, geryi, Moensis, etc.) are, 
as you suggest, more descriptive and quite often reflect the name of 
a person who collected it, of someone who contributed to the biology 
or maintenance of that fish, and/or of some location where the fish 
was found.  Fundulopanchax gardneri, for example, is named after 
Captain R.D.Gardner who collected it in the 1910s in Nigeria; and 
there are many subspecies/strains of gardneri in the hobby today, 
such as Akure, Makurdi, and N'sukka.  By the way, there is pretty 
widespread agreement (at least for now) that this fish belongs to the 
Fundulopanchax and not to the Aphyosemion genus.

I think this is right ... although admittedly a bit confusing at times. :)

Alberto
AKA08000
San Diego
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