A.nijsseni fem. Flank Patch

["Max Gallade" <m.gallade@jdneuhaus.com>]

Hi all,
I like to pick the collective brain on this:
I'm keeping  a trio of A.nijsseni in a large heavily planted tank, 75g.They
bred several times for me and the first spawn is 120 days old now.I have 4
females from the first spawn.2 fem.without any side blotches,1
fem.w.blotches on both sides,1fem.with only one blotch on the right side of
her body.One of the adult female has two!! side blotches on the right side
of her body and only one on the left.The second blotch on the right side
looks like a faded black rectangle and is smaller in size than the regular
blotch.Let me call
her fem1.The other adult fem.has two side blotches=fem2.
I noticed that the fem1. became the dominant fem. and occupied a large area
in the middle of the tank.My male spends most of his time around her and her
fry(they always have youngens).Once in a while he sneaks over two fem2,
which took up quarters in a small corner of the tank,swims around for a
short time and immediately heads back to fem1 and her fry.He spawned with
fem2 several times as well.
Fem2 doesn't even go near fem1 but chases away any other DC that comes near
her territory.
I noticed similar behavior in my juvenile fem..The ones with two side
blotches are more dominant than the ones without any patches and are not
bothered by the other juvenile females.
I suspect that the patches resemble some sort of ranking among the group of
fish.A males chooses the dominant females to breed with and lower ranks stay
away from them.
I saw a good example of this theory on Richard Attenborough's Life of Birds
series on PBS:
Common Sparrows have a rank system like that.The birds with the brightest
and biggest black chest patch are the highest ranked birds=Generals.
The birds without any patches are the lowest in the pecking order=Soldiers.
The Generals always get first choice over food,nesting grounds,females and
resting areas.
What y'all think?
Max



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