Re: My Apistography

[Pete Johnson <petej@tlg.net>]

>> * A. agassizii (Peruvian blue, wild)
>> * A. bitaeniata (Peruvian, wild)
>> * A. cacatuoides (red & orange)

>1. Do you mean that you have two strains each of the above
>or are you saying e.g. that the aggies are called peruvian blue,
>and that they are wild. Are the cockatoos both red and orange on the
>same fish? Living in Japan I am unsure as to terminology
>of breeds of apisto.

Sorry if that was unclear. No, the agassizii are just what we brought 
back from Peru -- they're blue aggies, though some seemed to show other 
colors as they grew out. Interestingly, Uwe Romer, a German apisto expert 
who just spoke to the ACA in New Orleans, says that if you breed wild 
aggies, regardless of whether they're blue, yellow or red, the offspring 
will show all the color varieties. That is, the dominant color form in an 
area is selected by environmental conditions. It is not genetically 
determined.

A. cacatuoides occurs in many color varieties which do breed true. I am 
aware of reds (that's one color variety, it's not red+orange) and oranges 
and double reds and even triple reds, all of which I believe are 
German-produced color strains. I have both red and orange varieties. The 
red varieties might show some orange -- these fish have lots of different 
colors on them -- but they're called reds as that is the dominant color. 
I have reds and two kinds of oranges. One of the oranges is *very* large, 
and the female even shows color on her caudal.

>2. I remember you as saying that some wild apisto you brought back
>from Peru was thought to be a new color form, at least to the US hobby.
>Did that turn out to be so? If so, anything published about it?
>What species, what were its characteristics?

These were blue agassizii. They looked different from the pictures in 
Linke & Staeck so I thought they might be a new kind of aggie, but I now 
know there are many small color variations, and these fell somewhere on 
the known spectrum.

A. agassizii has the largest range of any Apisto -- it's a major-league 
range for *any* fish -- so there are many regional variations. The Rio 
Tefe agassizii, for instance, show two distinct color forms. One is very 
red but similar to other aggie color forms. The other is spangled like a 
Christmas ornament. Singular in appearance, but Romer says it breeds with 
other aggie color forms and the offspring are fertile.



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     If wishes were fishes we'd all have ponds.

Pete Johnson        San Jose, CA       petej@tlg.net
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