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The last two years have been spent trying to determine if there is a real difference between the two L-number designations. I was very fortunate to purchase 6 Pseudacanthicus several years ago that all looked very similar. They all fall clearly into the 'L600' type and turned out to be 3 pairs. I have grown out fry from 2 of the pairs with the largest now reaching almost 4.5". In the over 1000 fry that I have seen there has never been one that looked like a L114. I have been working with Cristoffer to compare notes and pictures of his nice L114s. He has similar notes about the consistence of the appearance of his fry. The consistent difference between the two is the change in patterning from the body to the head. The pattern is much finer on the head of the L600s. The dorsal and tail fins for both can be solid or have some pattern through the middle.
Through the help of friends, many DNA samples of Pseuda species have been collected. Unfortunately the two labs processing the samples are months behind. The results will give some direction to this debate (or not).

What I can share with everyone with this thread are three points of clarification.
1. Photos of both Cristoffer's L114 fry and my L600 at 4 months (1.5")
2. A photo of my favorite F1 L600 fry at 4.5" and 14 months.
3. A preliminary Pseudacanthicus DNA tree with the limited sequences in the database. Remember that each branch is considered a different species. There currently is not a confirmed 'L114' or 'cf'.' in the database.

Photo of Cristoffer's L114 fry at 4 months Photo of My L600 fry at 4 months Photo of L600 at 4.5" an 14 months (very healthy) DNA Tree (in next post)

At this point I am not making any definitive conclusions. I wanted to share my information to date and receive input from the group at large. There are many talented people on board with much more experience in ichthyology. I am an engineer by profession and have enlisted the help of a genetic researcher for this project. This means we have the technology and the information to reach the wrong conclusions faster than anyone else!

All joking aside please let me know if this type of information helps or just confuses everything.
Jim

DNA Tree The RCJMK information is mine.
Thanks for looking!
Jim

The eventual results of this project may be possible to write up as a short scientific note to be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal... When you guys are done collecting data perhaps we can discuss this.

I know you're not a biologist but I do have some comments.

Your tree diagram appears to be missing a scale bar, thus the branch lengths don't really tell us very much about actual distance, just relative distance. It's also unrooted; you don't have an outgroup taxon that is definitely outside of your group of interest (Pseudacanthicus). Assuming these are partial COI sequences, you should be able to download some of the sequences from GenBank from other loricariids to be the outgroup.

So you have three species in your tree? I see Pseudacanthicus sp. L25, Pseudcanthicus sp. 'Acari Espinho', and three Pseudacanthicus leopardus.

There currently is not a confirmed 'L114' or 'cf'.' in the database.

Are you planning to add any samples of these?

umm what in the world are you feeding that thing??!! WOW!!!

A few quick notes since is late over here.
I will post a fuller tree tomorrow with the % differences.
I kept the tree small because all of the Pseuda samples in the BOLD system do not have good photos or none at all so the Ids are suspect, so look at the tree with caution.
My entries all have and will have specimen photos.
I am a contributor to BOLD which has a link to most of the genetic banks across the world.
There are 4 samples of L114 in for sequencing.

For food I use Spectrum Thera A.
Later,
Jim

Interesting, I also feed Thera A or the nls 3mm pellet, and my have gone from an inch and a half to 8 inches for one and 6 1/2 inches for the other in 19-20 months.

My entries all have and will have specimen photos.

Do you have preserved voucher specimens?

Interesting reading. I've just bought 2 young L114, that were actually labelled as L025 in my LFS. They look very like your pictured fish here with the full orange tail and large markings from head to tail.
Roll on a year or two to see how they transform into adulthood

Gavin

PseudaSmart wrote:The last two years have been spent trying to determine if there is a real difference between the two L-number designations.

This is a fine point, but bear in mind L600 is a tradename for a described species and not a designated l-number. So it might be better saying trying to compare and P. sp. .

My pedantry aside, this is a really interesting project and I look forward to updates on this thread. Meantime, do you have pics of the parents you mentioned spawned in the first post?

Cheers,

Jools

Hi!!

Another thing to bare in mind is are the differences enough to consider them as seperate species or not?

A friend of mine made similar studies, and his conclusion they are the same thing!!
Cheers
Yann

Very interesting Jim! Just tell me if i could contribute!

Cristoffer

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. Here is additional information and comments.
'L600 is a trade name', there is absolutely no argument here. They have to be called something until this is resolved.

'Preserved Voucher Specimens.' The short answer is no. I have multiple DNA samples from: L600, L114, L160, L65, L25, and LDA105. I seriously doubt that anyone who owns these is willing to sacrifice them in the name of science. I will keep offspring that do not survive as reference.

Photos of the parents: Image 24 on the L114 cat-e-log page shows my pair. They look far better than the photo They have been in a 300 gallon stock tub for the last two years so good photos are hard to get. I will try in the next week for new ones. Here is a photo of other male I have spawned. He is nice but the other male is better. Here is the expanded DNA tree. Keep in mind only numbers 6 and 8 (mine) are validated with photos. It will be interesting is see how the tree fills out when the others pseudas are sequenced.
Milton: 6 and 8 are a 100% match. 6 and 7 are a 99.13% match. 6 and 5 are a 97.55% match. 6 and 4 are a 92.66% match. Regards,
Jim

Yann wrote:Hi!!

Another thing to bare in mind is are the differences enough to consider them as seperate species or not?

A friend of mine made similar studies, and his conclusion they are the same thing!!
Cheers
Yann

I think if the different collection point is not enough evidence then I don't know "what" it could be.
The price for us importers is also different because of transportation as such from their different collection points. Although I don't deny the possibility that each specie will produce similar offspring\specimens among their respective families, it is enviable the possibility of being a separate specie all together.

L427 now adds to this very same controversy but the collection point is totally out of range from the other two species in discussion.
I have also received another shipment from Tapajos with a very similar specimens that I'll be posting pictures as soon as they complete their quarantine period.

I have received L114\LDA007,, L600\LDA073, and L427 at 3" to 6-7-8" and their show very "remarkable" differences from head to tail.

Hi Jim and all.

Jim - be sure and check out the below paper in the new issue of Cybium (see Science and Taxonomy forum).

Fisch-Muller S., Montoya-Burgos J.I., Le Bail P.Y. & Covain R. - Diversity of the Ancistrini (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from the Guianas: the Panaque group, a molecular appraisal with descriptions of new species. [Diversité des Ancistrini (Siluriformes : Loricariidae) des Guyanes : le groupe Panaque, une évaluation moléculaire avec descriptions de nouvelles espèces.]

The paper has sequence data, and discussion thereof, on P. leopardus from the Rupununi River in Guyana, where the type specimen came from.

Hope this may offer some help.

Lee

Unungy:
Like what I said with Hypancistrus. the Species concept is somewhat different from a science perspective and a hobbyist perspective.
Also bare in mind that a species can have geographical variation, still they would belong to the same species.
Again, it is the responsability of the hobbyist not to mix geographical variation, even if they are from the same species!!
Cheers
Yann

Hi all.

Yann wrote: Again, it is the responsability of the hobbyist not to mix geographical variation, even if they are from the same species!!

All I can say to this is: YES!!

In many, and increasing, cases these "geographical variants" are showing themselves to be different species.
Lee

Unungy wrote: I think if the different collection point is not enough evidence then I don't know "what" it could be.

We know the L114 comes from the Rio Demini, but does anyone actually know the collection locality of the "real" P. leopardus (aka L600) in the trade?

lfinley58 wrote:The paper has sequence data, and discussion thereof, on P. leopardus from the Rupununi River in Guyana, where the type specimen came from.

The data from this specimen (GenBank JF746997) appears to be a match to the P. leopardus on BOLD (perhaps 100%, but the tree differs).

PseudaSmart wrote: 'Preserved Voucher Specimens.' The short answer is no. I seriously doubt that anyone who owns these is willing to sacrifice them in the name of science.

I'm very surprised that BOLD allowed you to do this without a preserved voucher and museum accession numbers. This is one of basic and fundamental requirements of the database.

Thanks for the information. I forgot to ask another question about the tree. Are you constructing it with a distance-based method (ie. neighbor-joining) or an optimization method (ie. maximum parsimony)? I'd assume you'd use a distance-based method since you guys aren't biologists, but distance trees do not show evolutionary relationships, only similarity. It seems like a fine distinction why these types of trees are different, but the difference is fundamental...

I'll have to agree with racoll that this study is on shaky ground when you say that there are no voucher specimens. Then again I imagine your main goal isn't publication in a scientific journal.

We know the L114 comes from the Rio Demini, but does anyone actually know the collection locality of the "real" P. leopardus (aka L600) in the trade?

Yes, far away from Rio Demini, they are from the rivers in upper Roraima close to the border to Guyana.

Janne

Thank you everyone for the feedback, all of these details are very much appreciated.
Answers to some of the additional questions.
I am pretty sure my fish came from Guyana. I will contact the seller?

BOLD Database
My contributions are labeled as a 'Research Collection' this allows people like me to contribute.
Under voucher type there is a choice of 'e-voucher: tissue and photo only'
This way we can contribute but it also clarifies the type of data.
The tree is created automatically by BOLD, but it does note it is by Specimen Simularity, distance. Does this help?
I cannot see the genbank file you mentioned in BOLD, am I missing anything obvious?

It would be nice to do a paper but would anyone sacrifice a Scarlet or a Typhoon? I will pass for now.
Thanks again!
Jim

The tree is created automatically by BOLD, but it does note it is by Specimen Simularity, distance. Does this help?

The use of a tree, or the choice of tree building methods depends entirely on the question asked ...

I cannot see the genbank file you mentioned in BOLD, am I missing anything obvious?

It is not on BOLD. I used the GenBank data as a query in BOLD's identification engine.

That answers my question, thanks.

I mailed this to Jim, but thought others might be interested. Here's the original description of the species:

Fowler, H. W. (1914). Fishes from the Rupununi River, British Guiana. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia v. 66: 229-284.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28709051/fowler ... pardus.pdf [1.8 MB].