Re: Apisto ID

[Wright Huntley <huntley@ix.netcom.com>]

Gary wrote:
> 
> Jota Melgar wrote:
> >
> > Gary wrote:
> >
> > > The Ucayali is A river where cacatuoides is found. The form in question
> > is from above Iquitos. <
> >
> > I'm wondering why people are using the tag of "Rio Ucayali" if this form is
> > from above Iquitos. The Ucayali meets the Maranon at Nauta, aproximately 75
> > Km below Iquitos.
> >
> > Julio
> Hi Julio and all,
>         It's 'cause we're lazy sometimes. Oops. Checked my notes, my map and my
> source, and I change my preposition to 'below'.
>         It does point to a problem though, and not just with my carelessness.
> It would be nice if we had a standard for identifying interesting wild
> forms of apistos like cacatuoides. Originally, I tacked a 'location' on
> my fish for a local auction, hoping the strain could maintain a local
> identity. With commercial imports, we have little info on their real
> origin. They could be from a water tank in some guy's backyard. Things
> can easily get all twisted up - look at the pandurini thread, or the
> discus hobby. I should have followed Innes - and called them Apisto
> cacatuoides U-66.5.
> Gary (the man with the upside down globe)
> 

Gary may have his globe upside down, but his aims are most laudable,
indeed. 

This problem got a bit out of hand for killies in the 70s, when everyone
from Europe seemed to be scooping up little fish all over Africa (South
America wasn't exempt). Some killies that look absolutely identical
don't even carry the same number of chromosomes! It was no wonder that
infertility and species loss became rampant. There are still lots of
quasi-fertile hybrids in the hobby.

Something has evolved from that experience that may be worth
considering. First, we need a single gathering point for information on
new wild collections. Every trip (or new importation from wild
collections) should be accurately reported to that recorder. 

Roger Langton has been doing killie-collection recording for some years
now. Worth consulting him on the practical problems. AKA publishes his
recordings every year or two (or he does, and handles the sales thru
AKA). Roger is quite well known to cichlidiots.

The fish should be identified by *Genus species, sub-species*,
Collection location, and a two or three letter code for the trip
(initials, country abreviation, whatever -- just relatively unique)
followed by a two-digit year and a slash followed by the exact
collection site number. If the collection trip map is filed with the
recorder, and each collection hole is numbered sequentially on the map,
An identification can be summarized neatly enough to stay with the fish
and their offspring.

An example might be *Apistogramma bettemiddleri* Entre Rios XYZ 98/3 F2.

[The asterisks are standard ASCII notation to represent italics. XYZ
might stand for Xavier, Yolanda and Zelda. (Xavier collects in style!)
Third stop on the '98 collection tour. Grandkids of the wild fish.]

The parental generation should be labeled P or "wild" and then F1,F2,
etc. for (filial) descendent generations. There ain't no such thing as
"F0" in biological notation, BTW. Each collection site number can now
have an accurate GPS survey location to make the process very precise.

Two things seem to be needed for this to really work. 1) Widespread
publicity of *and* acceptance of a standardized ID method, and 2)
general acceptance of the recording authority. The ACA could help,
maybe.

Being the Apisto group, I don't really need to raise my flame shield,
but some discussion of how we get Gary's concerns satisfied seems to be
needed. The above is just a rough first whack at it. [Yeah, it *is* a
bit redundant. That's known as error-correction encoding in my
business.] What do *you* think?

Wright

- -- 
Wright Huntley, Fremont CA, USA, 510 494-8679 huntley@ix.netcom.com
"Subvert the dominant paradigm!"