[Killietalk] History of the Blue Gularis and Occidentalis

[ROBERT ELLERMANN <ruevenm at sbcglobal_net>]

Hi Barry,
   
      Yes, it was cleared up in 1966 or 1967 with Stenholt Clausen's publication of his description of the genus "Roloffia" in his book "Tropical Old World Cyprinodonts" in Denmark. He discovered -- using the types -- that Boulenger had misidentified what is now know as occidentalis as sjoestedti and so occidentalis was in reality an undescribed species. He also discovered that the true sjoestedti was in fact the blue gularis which, as you say, was then going by the name coeruleum -- a name based on "gulare variety blue" as opposed to "gulare variety yellow" (i.e. F. gulare). Blue gularis were first called "gulare var. blue" by Boulenger in the early 1900's and then Boulenger made them a distinct species using the name coeruleum for the "blue", but the influence of the "gulare" name remained in the common name: blue gularis. Clausen named the undescribed species passing as sjoestedti, occidentalis and made it the type species for the new genus "Roloffia". Sadly, Myers had us!
 ed
 occidentalis when it was thought to be sjoestedti as the type species for his subgenus Callopanchax (1933) within Aphyosemion and when Myers protested to the authorities that Clausen's new genus "Rolofia" should just be his Callopanchax or just Aphyosemion, his argument won the scientific day and "Roloffia" was no more. Clausen was ultimately proven right about the fish being a new genus as today the old "Roloffia's" form THREE distinct genera.
   
  Bobby

Barry Cooper <bjc3 at centurytel_net> wrote:
  You have to be careful about anything you read in the old literature 
about blue gularis and the other fish it was confused with. There was 
confusion between it, then known as Aphyosemion coeruleum and the 
so-called Golden Pheasant, now known as Callopanchax occidentalis, but 
then know an Aphyosemion sjoestedti. I would have to look up up when 
this confusion, caused by a mididentification, was cleared up, but as I 
recall it was in the 1960s. Anyway if old literature refers to Aphyo. 
sjoestedti it is probably referring to C. occidentalis.

Barry

Barry J. Cooper
Sweet Home, OR 97386



Lyretail at aol_com wrote:

>Hi All,
> 
>For what it's worth, I checked in my "Life and Love in the Aquarium" 
>C.H.Peters 1934 and found the following under Fundulopanchax coeruleus Blue Gularis: 
>"Mature fish are about three inches long, although we have seen many larger 
>fish but these were probably collected specimens." Two pages of text describe 
>the care and breeding of the blue gularis. Incidentally, Innes's first 
>edition was published in 1935.
> 
>Fred Sharpell
>Join the AKA at http://aka.org/modules/tinycontent0/index.php?id=9
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>
> 
>
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