E-mails about ELB

Professor Endler to Richard Sexton:
Dear Mr. Sexton,
   A friend gave me a copy of your description of "Poecilia Endler's", andI thought that you might like to know a little more about my namesake!   I discovered these fish in Laguna de Patos, near Cumana, northeastern Venezuela in 1975.  They had in fact been collected in 1937 by Franklyn F. Bond, but I didn't know that at the time.  (I found his collection in the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan).  They were found in warm (27-30 degrees C) bright green and hard water in a small lake.  The bright metallic green is about the only thing that a prospective mate can see in this very (unicellular) algae-rich water.  Interestingly enough, a single
population of guppies that I found in southern Trinidad living in a similar habitat was just starting to evolve the metallic green coloration, but it was nothing compared to this species.  The original stock was much more polymorphic variable than the present one in the aquarium trade.  I have also long since lost the stock but it is supposed to be in the process of being named by some people in Germany.  I wanted them to call it Poecilia haskinsi after Caryl Haskins, who knows more about wild guppies than anyone, and who
started me out studying these interesting species!
    "Endler's Poecilia" got into the Aquarium trade via Klaus Kallman of the New York Aquarium, who got it from the late Donn Eric Rosen, the major taxonomic expert of the Poeciliidae, to whom I gave it so that he could name it.  Unfortunately he died before naming it.  Klaus gave it to aquarists and added the present common name ("Endler's Livebearer" or "Endler's Poecilia") with out telling me (as a surprise), and I first heard about it during a visit to England in the mid-1980's.  It was quite a surprise, but also a disappointment to see how much of the original color pattern variation has been lost through inbreeding and founder events.  The wild fish are not always "double swordtails", have much more variable color patterns, and some even have black pectoral fins.  But all have the lovely metallic green spots, though variable in size, shape, and position.  Although highly variable, the wild fish are not quite as variable as wild guppies, though much more so than P. picta or P. parae--the closest relatives.  You mention their not having the "big triangular veil tail", but wild guppies never have the veil tail either; veil tails are an artifact of selective breeding.
   "Endler's Poecilia" are not the same as guppies (Poecilia reticulata).  One of the first things I did when I found them in 1975 was to try to cross them with wild guppies from a few kilometers away in Venezuela, as well as with other wild stocks of guppies.  Occasionally I would get F1 hybrids, but that's all; they are clearly a distinct species.  They live only in two sites in Venezuela, one of them (Cumana) next to the city dump, so they might even be extinct now in the wild.  Someone should try to go back and check.  The second population I only heard about but was unable to find--at the base of the Peninsula de Paria.  The fact that they may be endangered makes me happy that they are being kept by aquarists!
         With best wishes,
                      John A. Endler
                      Professor of Biology

From Shireen Gonzaga to Wilma:
Dear Wilma,

a very happy Thanksgiving to you too!

I wish I could help but I'm just starting out with my stock, and haven't had any offspring yet. Some people on the list may be willing
to sell or trade fish with you. I bought my first batch of Endlers from Dominic Isla. He used to work for Klaus Kallman, and the fish
he has are "pure" Endlers, direct descendants of the stock that Endler gave Kallman. The second batch I got was from the Aquarium Center in Randallstown, MD. They get them sporadically from a friend of the owner. I keep the two batches in separate tanks, and find them to be quite different. My ultimate hope is to duplicate Ron Newcomb's efforts to get different strains (see his amazing webpage for more details (snip)) and to also promote exchanges between other Endler's Livebearer owners.

If you wish to purchase some fish, contact Dominic Isla at 303-777-3859 (Denver), or send him email at liveisland@earthlink.net . He just got back from a collecting trip in Haiti, and may have some other interesting livebearers in stock.

cheers,
 Shireen
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Shireen Gonzaga, Freelance Science Writer, Baltimore, MD.
Telephone: 410-338-4412   E-mail: shireen@clark.net

From Harro Hieronimus to me re:spontaneous appearance of swordtails:

Ronald A. Newcomb. schrieb:
> Endler's Live Bearers have apparent swordtails naturally. That is, they have
> colors on their tails that make them look as if they are swords when in fact
> they usually have a simple fan tail.
> I have developed a true swordtail and have created a page for them at:
> http://judicialjudgments.net/swordtail.htm
> It is linked to my main Endler's page. Sorry for the poor quality in the
> photos but I don't have much time right now. I will try to get better ones
> before the end of the millenium :)
> The pictures have been enhanced but not altered. It isn't always clear in
> the photo college, but, if you examine it closely you can see the sword in
> the shots.
> Ronald A. Newcomb
>

Hi Ronald,

I had a look on your swordtail page and saw the swordtail Endler's. They make a real good looking. However, you shouldn't forget, that these guppies aren't real Endler's any longer but a breeder's product like veiltail or delta guppies.
Nevertheless this makes them also worth keeping and breeding, but you must not give them away under the name of Endler's guppy but as a breeder's stock based on Endler's guppy.

As far as we know Endler's guppy in nature only develops coloured parts of the caudal fin (like those described by you in your original email) or very small double swords which typically aren't similarly long on top and bottom, as in your swordtail. Keeping these fish in the aquarium - in respect to the high mutation rate guppies show in nature, and in regard to the fact that we have to consider Endler's to be a guppy variety until we know more about it - it is quite normal that we have mutations earlier or later. Most won't be seen, those like the elongated bottomsword will. In nature these specimens will not have breeding success as they are more prominent and those more endangered by predators, maybe also a little slower as their competitors - as long as we consider that females don't select mating males actively for sowrd length, which I don't believe (to believe means not to know the truth :-)  ).

So far these swordtail Endler's won't be desirable fish for purists.
Nevertheless they make an excellent looking and surely will be desirable fishes for every livebearer enthusiast which doesn't care too much about origin and conservation of pure species. And many of these are very good aquarists!

Ronald, if you ended up with your whole stock with long bottomswords, you lost your Endler's (maybe try to get some new in a separate tank) but ended up with a colourful new guppy variety. However, if you give some away, it should be obligatory to you to mention that it aren't true Endler's.

Last but not least an answer to the question, if we must not select our Endler's stocks at all. The answer is no, we are allowed to. Mother nature also selects. But - we are not allowed to select for human taste but for other principles we can assume are working in nature. We must have strong, vivid fish, no pure, small species and no gigantic specimens with enlarged fins.

Best regards

Harro Hieronimus, Solingen, Germany
harro.hieronimus@t-online.de

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No fish - no fun
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Editors note: I highly respect the people writing in this group, even when we disagree. We disagree a lot!
My breed is a mixture of different trusted phenotypes. The goal was to get back to as deep of a genetic pool as possible so that they would become, like they are in the wild, hetrozygous. The swords popped up in one brood, then disappeared. The question was: Is this a trait of the original stock? This was answered by Shireen:

Hi guys.... thrilled to see some Endler's traffic again. I haven't had time to absorb all the discussion yet because I'm a bit pressed
for time. But I just wanted to mention that I do have a semi-sword male. It's not as prominent as Ronald's fish, but nevertheless a sword. My stock came from Dominic Isla, who got it from Klaus Kallman, who got it from John Endler.

Congratulations, Ronald!

cheers,
 shireen
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Shireen Gonzaga, Freelance Science Writer, Baltimore, MD.
Telephone: 410-338-4412   E-mail: shireen@clark.net

Armando Pou to Shireen:
Dear Shireen,
      I've collected a number of wild Endler's livebearers in Cumana, Venezuela, and now have a large stock of pure "Endler's"(with seven or eight distinct color "types" and a number of tail forms).  In a separate room I also have a multitude of Endler's x Poecilia reticulata crosses ranging from high finned to "Berlin" to blonde.  I've had about equal numbers of males and females, if anything, in my case, there may be slightly more males than females, but that may be a factor of the room's temperature.  All my fish are quite fertile, and am working on 3rd and 4th generation hybrids.
      My hybrids are kept in an air-conditioned room where the temperature is in the low 70's while my Endler's are kept around 88-90 Fahrenheit.  There are a number of studies that suggest that temperature is a factor among several egg laying species (lower temperatures producing more males while higher temperatures produce females).  I'm not sure if this would be a factor in
Viviparous fish.

      I believe Endler's, Poecilia reticulata, Poecilia picta and Poecilia parae are all closely related species.  This is similar to the relationship between platys and swordtails.  The offspring of these latter fish are also fertile.
      To answer your question, there are species that produce only single sexed offspring (usually female); as in the case of the Amazon Molly (Poecilia formosa); but these females are fertile and will produce offspring that are identical in their genetic make-up to themselves.  There are many examples of sterile hybrids, (horse X donkey = mule), lions & tigers, etc... but, if I'm not mistaken the offspring can be of either sex.  I think you'll find that if you place your offspring back in with their father, or other guppies, they will
eventually reproduce (both sexes).

To HFINKELSTEIN:
      Professor Endler was the one that directed me on how to get to Laguna de los Patos in Cumana.  The Laguna is an estuary which not only had a city dump next to it, but now has several sewer pipes emptying into it on one side!
Laguna de los Patos is not a single body of water, but rather several shallow mangrove estuaries that interconnect during the rainy season.  This may be the reason that the Endler's and several other fish species have been able to survive there.  Part of the Laguna appears to have undergone some sort of restoration or replanting effort. My first collection was in December of 1997, followed by a couple in 1998.  I have since changed jobs and no longer travel into Latin America.  I would collect over weekends on trips in which I needed to stay more than a week.  In addition to the Endler's, there were a couple of other livebearer species (Poecilia sphenops? and a Limia species).

Armando to the group:

      I've recieved a number of inquires on the Endlers I collected and their habitat.  I was not a member of the list when the discussions were hot and heavy on the Endlers.  I hope I don't bore the rest of the folks not interested in Endler's Livebearer.  I have collected several other livebearer species, a few of which I was not able to identify,(I wish I had you guys as a resource back then!), couldn't breed and now have lost.
      Laguna de los Patos, in Cumana Venezuela is a fresh to brackish water estuary largely surrounded by Black Mangroves.  On these Mangroves there were small rookeries of Scarlet Ibis, Egrets, Herons and Pelicans.  There was a section of this lagoon that looked to have been stripped of all vegetation and was adjacent to a cliff that at one time may have been some sort of land fill judging from the rubbish of all sorts that was floating in that part of the lagoon. There appeared to be a new road being built along the same part of the lagoon.  In the future, this road may keep the rubbish from getting into the lagoon.  On the ocean side of the lagoon there is a finger channel crossing the beach side road and dying a couple hundred meters from the ocean.  This is where I found the Poecilia sphenops? (or some sort of Molly) and a blue hughed Limia species, neither of which made it back alive.  I believe that at one
time, the laguna may have actually connected to the ocean.  There were a number of other species at the laguna including several species of Characin, a goby species, what appeared to be a killifish and numerous fiddler crabs and an abundance of shore birds.
      The water of the laguna itself ranged from a pea green color to a silty red-grey.  It was quite stagnent in areas, where a mucousy white film covered the surface.  The bottom of the lagoon was mucky and rich in leaf detritus.
The familiar smell of rotting sea side vegitation was everywhere.  The area surrounding the lagoon was quite arid; red soils dominating the cliff side of the laguna and calcareous sand on the ocean side.  The laguna is largely fresh water, but I believe the salt content of the laguna increases during the dry season.  The water depth varies from a few centimeters to three or four meters,(the largest portion being shallow flats).  Unfortunately I have no photographs of the laguna.
      I also have no pictures of my Endlers, nor would I know how to post them on the net if I did.  There are 7 or 8 dominant forms or color "types", one of the pretiest of which is the one currently sold in the hobby.  There is also a color form where black coloration is dominant only breaking into orange-red above the eye in a streak that terminates in the caudal fin.  Light colored dorsals (baby blue or yellow) also occur.  The tail fin can have a top sword, bottom sword, double sword, a plume and even a small "delta" of sorts.  These
(editors note: message truncated, then ammended)   Forgive my last message, I launched it accidentally before I finished it or read it over.  In any case, for those of you that enjoy weird strains,
occasionally in my stock, male specimens appear in which the entire body is orange with transverse black bars.  Their dorsal fins are brilliant yellow with black spots and more rays.  These fish are roughly 1-1/2 times larger than typical Endler males with a stockier appearance.  They are very aggressive, and so far may in fact be sterile as I have been unable to produce a line of them.
All the fish I've described were wild caught or derived from wild stocks and are "pure" Endlers.  I collected roughly 200 specimens over the various collections (~100 of which I brought back), unfortunately none of these exhibited the black pectorals that Prof. Endler described.

Harro regarding speciation:

Hi all,

as my name was mentioned in a posting I will drop a few notes on Endler's guppy.

First a few words on the specific concept of today. According to Mair, a species is a self-reproducing, geographically isolated population. There is no need that they can't crossbreed with another species. This is an old fashioned species concept. Under this concept all rainbowfishes were one species as well as a South American finch and the Canary bird as all red canary birds derive from
this cross. If a population is geographically isolated there is no need for a genetic barreer. If two species occur in the same water (occuring sympatric) they may also be geographically isolated by using other ecological niches.
However, this sometimes makes it difficult, like in some species/races/species flocks in Girardinus.

A subspecies - according to the most commonly accepted concept - has a hybridization zone with the other subspecies. Otherwise it should have species rank.

Who makes a species? Everybody who follows the rules of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature may describe a species. However, every other scientist may follow this view or not. For example, in the most recently published and still valid revision of the Poeciliidae in 1963 by Rosen & Bailey all mollies from Central America except latipinna, velifera and petenensis were collected under P. sphenops. This revision was widely not accepted, e.g. Bob Miller published a key to the Mexican species summarized under sphenops in this revision a few years later. However, this was no revision. If you follow the last reviser, all butleri, mexicana, salvatoris, etc., are sphenops. Indeed they aren't but... I could go on for pages describing the problems.

Another word on Endler's guppy. Some of the list members seem to think it is a separate species. I have read in the last postings the demand to describe it. But what for? There is no evidence that it is a species on its own. The gonopodium is not distinguishable from the guppy's one. The body counts are identic, there is no report on a different behavior (factually, we don't even know enough about the real guppy behavior), the first guppy was described from Venezuela and thus you can't even exclude that the fish we call Endler's were the guppies described in 1859 as Peters only had females. No, it's not as easy that you say "coloration is different, make it a new species", there should be a little more. As far as we don't know more we should regard Endler's a variety of the guppy (and there is no relation to P. picta and P. parae or P. - or ar they all Micropoecilia? That's again the question of accepting the genus - bifurca, but there may be to P. minima as the mating behavior is really similar). Of course that should be enough to keep it for separate and not mix it with other guppy varieties. In the moment we don't even know how many varieties of guppies exist on Trinidad, and that has to be solved first.
 

Best regards

Harro Hieronimus, Solingen, Germany
harro.hieronimus@t-online.de

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No fish - no fun
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In a message dated 10/27/1999 11:25:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
newcomb1@home.com writes:

<< I am not mixing guppies and Endler's, but different Endler's color  phenotypes. Pure x Pure = Pure. The goal is a stronger breeding stock of  pure, but heterozygous, Endler's livebearer.
  >>

Hi Ronald,

Sadly you are probably working against your desired goals of purity. Wild populations of most fishes are inherently inbred with reasonably constant "fixed" characteristics. The Endler's has not been studied so as you breed for heterozygosity you may in fact be destroying the genetic integrity of isolated populations that might have been species or incipient species in their own right.

There is also the distinct chance that as the site is visited by increasing numbers of collectors that genetic contamination is occurring from releases of non-local fishes. This careless release of non-local fishes is a major problem in Mexico and is destroying the purity of spring-fish genomes as well as causing extinction of the native species as a new species is introduced by some simplistically soft-hearted aquarist who doesn't want a fish any longer that was collected many water sheds distant. In misguided compassion, instead
of killing the fish outright the collectors are releasing them into non-native waters and jeopardizing the native fauna. One example: This seems to have happened to the beautiful Characodon (Goodeidae) at Chupaderos - today no one sees anything there but the non-native Goodea atripinnis and centrarchids!

We have sadly reached the point when we can no longer assume that wild-caught stocks are genetically pure or worse yet even native to the habitat you are collecting!

    Jim Langhammer

My response to Jim:
There is a probability that I have mixed other genetic materials with the Endler's by inadvertently putting cross bread fish into my tanks. However, your statement (above) seems a little fatalistic indicating that we can no longer trust the source location for the desired fish because of the possibility of contamination of the gene pool.
Where does this leave us? Must we throw up our arms and stop trying to collect a pure strain?
Endler noted on his visit to my site that the fish were too similar. His description of the fish on the site when he collected them was that there was remarkable color variations.
If we say that "as you breed for heterozygosity you may in fact be destroying the genetic integrity of isolated populations that might have been species or incipient species in their own right" the argument is that we should isolate groups that might be incipient species?
Some may want to do that, it was my hope to strengthen the breed by mixing the gene pool to regain isolated genetic materials into one gene pool which could serve as the basis for studies, or other needs.
If we come to the point you suggest, where nothing but isolated groups can be called "pure" then I still maintain my statement that Pure x Pure = Pure. Purity is the question, but since we are using observation and, therefore, inductive logic, we can never know anything in an absolute sense, but in that light, neither did Endler, previous collectors, or recent collectors such as you described. The point of an inductive leap happens somewhere.
The question we will never answer is, did some native traveling through the area 200 years ago accidentally pick up a guppy in his water gourd and then accidentally dump it into the lagoon?
Or, as likely as that, were guppies picked up by a water funnel and dropped into the lagoon and mix with the Endler's 50 years ago. We simply have no way to know there things.
Endler liked the mixture he saw after I mixed my gene pools. If others who have native strains can verify the similarity, then, I'll be happy.
Ronald A. Newcomb
COO Smith Technology Development LLC
Chairman of the Board of Directors, OCTuS Inc.

Jim's response:

You asked a question but prefer your own answer. I can live with that.

In the meantime I encourage others not to dilute Endler's own collected stock
as distributed by Dominic and others. For it has the greatest likelihood of
being pure since it was the earliest known collection before the likelihood
of contamination increased..

    Jim Langhammer

Dominic responding to Harro:

Hello, I agree with everything Harro says. But, as of my last conversation with Dr.Resnick he stated that there are differences in the gonopodium between Endlers and the Guppy. He also stated that they ooccur sympatrically. This poses more food for thought. The concept of species has to always be looked at with so common sense and open mindness. Nature to my way of thinking is chaos not exact  like quarts of milk in the shelf of the supermarket. It is plastic and evolving as we study it.Hence the title of ART&SCIENCES. THank
You DOminic

Armando to group:

      Wow!  What enthusiasm over the Endler's Livebearer!  This is great, I haven't seen this much discussion in a long time.  There is allot of interesting information going back and forth on genetics, species traits, subspecies, and regional "races", this is a topic I love.  As far as the Endler's Livebearer is concerned, I feel very strongly that P.picta IS in it's ancestry for three reasons.  First, I have collected a few Endler's livebearers that have nearly identical coloration (I know coloration does not a species make) to a photograph taken by M. Meyer shown on page 169 of Lothar Wischnath's Atlas of Livebearers of the World, of a Poecilia picta, noting especially the black coloration along the ventral area which fades and intensifies with "mood", also note the dorsal fin's coloration, (brilliant yellow with black spots) I had described this trait along with black transverse bars on the posterior part of it's body to Professor Endler back in 1997 when I first collected the fish.  None of these spectacular "morphs" survived to breed offspring.  Additionally, I have in the past successfully hybridized P.picta and P.reticulata, some of the offspring proving to be quite fertile, unlike
P.sphenops X P.reticulata (which have been shown to have sterile offspring).
Thirdly if we do follow the current scientific nomenclature, wouldn't all the genus Poecilia be at the very least distantly related?  At least sharing a common ancestor at some point.
      As far as the collection site being contaminated with other nonnative (to the Laguna de los patos) livebearing species, this may be true nearer to Caracas where there is an active aquarium hobby but not in Cumana.  Even if a few foreign specimens were released in these waters, assuming they managed to survive the heavy eutrophication of the lake and the many predators that live there, managing to mate and reproduce, their genes would be quickly diluted in a gene pool that I would estimate consists of several hundred thousand
individuals.  Living in South Florida (where numerous exotic fish species exist), I would say most exotics do best when they fill a nitch in the ecosystem not previously exploited by another species, or when the new species is able to reproduce faster or out competes the native by being more aggressive or through direct predation.  The only exception I see here is P.latipinna which has hybridized with P.sphenops near every major urban area, although there are many locations within the vastness of the Everglades and throughout
the mangroved coastline where pure P.latipinna exist in healthy numbers.
      Finally, I'd like to state that I've collected wild guppy varieties in both Trinidad and on several locations in Northern Venezuela and none compared to the incredibly colored wild specimens that exist in Laguna de los Patos, in Cumana.  If these fish are not even a subspecies of P.reticulata, and just a local "race" of guppy, I think they should be kept and preserved simply for their intrinsic beauty.  Best Regards, Armando

Armando,

I agree wholeheartedly. This is why maintaining undiluted collections is so important. If some are eventually proven to be hybridized, they can be deleted from species maintenance efforts. In the meantime nearly every serious maintenance program stresses keeping populations distinct. Although the black and yellow are characteristic of P. picta, would you not concur that the extraordinary green is very reminiscent of the "melanzona morph" of P. parae?

    Jim Langhammer

Jim, I agree with both of your observations.  In order to try and maintain any population, their origin needs to be known and kept separate from other populations, even if of the same species.  P.parae also resembles the Endler's very closely in some of it's colorations and markings.  That's why I mentioned it previously. All the "guppy-like" Poecilia of South America share many traits, I guess somewhat like the platys and swordtails of Mexico and Central America. I'm not an expert, but these fine definitions of what determines a separate species must be very difficult for those who are.  Armando

Okay now as someone else hinted we may also have an issue on purity bases inbreeding to weaken the strain.

It has been my observation that whenever I repeatedly inbreed for several generations the percentage of mutations seems to increase as well as the size of the fish decrease.  This inbreeding problem varies in from species to species but always has eventually shown up to some degree.

Now if look at a species like the Endler's which were collected years ago probably in small numbers I ask how many generations have they already been inbreed?  In my past experience I have found that about the F5 generation of brother to sister breeding is about the point where problems can be strongly expected.

With the Endler's where do go for new blood that we can be confident we are not destroying the pureness of the species?  How many were originally imported and how many different lines were created from that initial group?  Or should we on the
search for more wild stock to cross into our lines?

Dennis

Harro joins in:

You can't compare the melanzona morph with Endler's guppies by far. I've found that this morph occurs about 1 between 100 normally coloured males. There is no variation within this morph from one place - over the whole distribution there are variations, nevertheless. I can't find many - if any - similarities between Micropoecilia parae - in any of its veriations - and Endler's guppy.

Additionally I can't see many similarities between M. picta and Endler's. If you look at hundreds from male M. picta from one place you will find that there are only very few variations. To be more detailed, there is only one variation, you find also red males (although I found only 1 red male among hundreds of yellow ones). However, there are also variations depending on where you found the fish.

Astonishingly you don't find many guppies where you find M. picta and none where you find parae (or bifurca). At present I have only each one stock of guppies from Suriname and from French Guiana.

There was some discussion about the natural distribution of P. reticulata. As far as we know today guppies definitely have been found on Trinidad and in some parts of Venezuela before they were introduced artificially. However, we can be sure that they have been also introduced into Venezuela later on. We don't really know where all the guppies came from which were introduced for mosquito
control within South America. Many have maybe come from Trinidad - but from which stock there?

The main problem is not that guppies have been introduced in so many places. A much larger problem is that this is a species of high plasticity. If you have guppies in a natural water which many preyfish or birds of prey liek herons you will have colorless, tiny males and females. If you take these guppies into a water with no prey pressure you will find that after a few generations there is a clear tendency to larger females and males and more colorful males!

David Isla mentioned that there may be gonopodium differences. Compared with what? Trinidad guppies? Maybe these are the different species! Don't forget, that the guppy has been described from Venezuela and solely from females. That makes it so difficult. We don't have a male paratype. Before such one is designated we can't describe a species with different gonopodium which otherways superficially is very similar as a new species. This is a very complicated case, and hopefully we can solve it in near future.

For this purpose it would be very useful to have original material (males and females) preserved at the locality (with formaline or alcohole) originating from Venezuela and Trinidad (I think I could get the latter ones). Can anybody help with that? There have been more recent collections of Endler's guppies. Is there any chance to get preserved specimens (non aquarium raized)? That might help
solve the question.

Best regards

Harro Hieronimus, Solingen, Germany
harro.hieronimus@t-online.de

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No fish - no fun
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Harro,

You basically misread the communications you refer to. No one implied that there were identical systematic affinities nor synonymy between the Endler's LB and P. parae "melanzona" and P. picta. What was said was that those species seemed to share certain non-guppy-like intense colors (electric green and the dorsal fin's black/yellow) with the Endler's LB. The authors (I was one) were only saying that we didn't recognize clear evidence that Endler's were simply an isolated guppy.

    Jim Langhammer

In a message dated 10/28/1999 11:32:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
newcomb1@home.com writes:

<< Am I correct that "Endler's" only come from one lagoon?

 If so, then, Jim; is it correct to call homozygous fish isolated by aquarists  as separate populations since they would not be isolated in their natural  environment and become homozygous only artificially?
 I guess the answer is how one defines "population." But, how is it generally  used? How should it be used with Endler's of known heritage such as  Armando's and Dominic's?
  >>

Hi Ronald,

I'm not the one to answer the question about the habitat. I suspect some of us may have misperceptions about what a "lagoon" is - languages are so variable. It may represent a large body of water in Venezuela with many microhabitats within which some populational diversity and purity (integrity) may exist. I think Armando has implied this in previous postings.

I'm not sure how much variation actually exists among the aquarium strains. I received Endler's many years ago from Dr. Kallman's stock right after he released them to aquarists. The fish I received showed essentially NO VARIATION beyond minor deviations in the immediate outlines and boundaries of the very uniform color and pattern. Finnage, color, and size were all constant - then and today in the stocks which we know remain pure. I think only Dr. Endler can say with certainty from whence came the collection he
provided to Kallman. If it came from a very precise habitat in this "lagoon", it may well be distinct from collections Armando has made.

The important thing here is that when the Endler's was originally released, it was renowned to be essentially a beautiful, uniformly patterned fish with excellent fecundity and health. Therefore it behooves aquarists to try to maintain that well-documented collection in a pure bloodline. It quite obviously did not have the variation that others now ascribe to fishes coming from the "lagoon". Why? that can only be determined so long as we keep the collections separate with detailed data as to site, collector, date, etc.

You ask: "  is it correct to call homozygous fish isolated by aquarists  as separate populations since they would not be isolated in their natural  environment and become homozygous only artificially?"

Since all the Endler's I have seen are from Dr. Kallman's stock and never have deviated from the original stock in about ten years time, I suspect all are homozygous and perhaps always were in the collection by Endler. So none to my knowledge have been isolated into homozygous strains representing new mutations during captivity. Thus we can assume no "artificial" (i.e., man-made) homozygosity is involved.

The more recent flurry of postings involving reported albinism, extended swordtails, color variation, etc. almost certainly signify hybrids based upon my knowledge of the fish. I would not want them in my fish room and if I accepted them, it would be as an isolated stock with the best historical data possible and it would never get near the Kallman stock!   Ever!

There is no good definition of "population" beyond being generally used for an isolated inbreeding group - either in the wild or in captivity. The term does not necessarily reflect genetic exclusivity but only that its history is documented.

    Jim Langhammer

My response to Jim:

(snip)
>I'm not sure how much variation actually exists among the aquarium strains.
>I received Endler's many years ago from Dr. Kallman's stock right after he
>released them to aquarists. The fish I received showed essentially NO
>VARIATION beyond minor deviations in the immediate outlines and boundaries
>of the very uniform color and pattern. Finnage, color, and size were all
>constant - then and today in the stocks which we know remain pure. I think
>only Dr. Endler can say with certainty from whence came the collection he
>provided to Kallman. If it came from a very precise habitat in this
>"lagoon",
>it may well be distinct from collections Armando has made.

In a sense, Jim has proved my point. That which is considered "original" (not necessarily mine) should be what was reported from the location from which they originated, not from some time after from an isolated stock. Endler reported vide variation in colors and markings, such as the 10% with black pectoral fins. Kallman received stock from Endler. Kallman is known to have divided this stock and shipped some to others in the US and Europe, thus reducing his gene pool. Some time after this, once they had inter-bread and changed the variable characteristic Endler reported, Kallman distributed a homozygous group to the aquist community. Since this is so, that group is a hybrid. Armando states that he collected over 100 fish. He too notes variable color patterns. This again, is a characteristic that Endler reported in the original wild stock. There are, therefore, less hybridized.

>The important thing here is that when the Endler's was originally
>released, it was renowned to be essentially a beautiful, uniformly
>patterned fish with excellent fecundity and health. Therefore it behooves
>aquarists to try to maintain that well-documented collection in a pure
>bloodline. It quite obviously did not have the variation that others now
>ascribe to fishes coming from the "lagoon". Why? that can only be
>determined so long as we keep the collections separate with detailed data
>as to site, collector, date, etc.

Note here that you state "Endler's" short for "Endler's Livebearers" referring to those Kallman released which is a sub-group of those Endler sent to him since, again, we know he distributed them to other and, therefore, reduced his own gene pool. The question is, why does id behoove aquarists to maintain his particular strain? I see no reason since it is hybridized by inbreeding a particular color pattern. What was done here was to elevate Kallman's stock as the standard by which others are measured. I see no reason to assume this standard. Any characteristic can be hybridized, not just things like swordtails, which seem to come and go from my stock and Shireen's (which have a known heritage). In this case, the hybridization was that of the particular color pattern as noted by Endler himself commenting on the uniformity of my strain. It was he who pointed out the variation in the original population and the lack of that characteristic in my stock of homozygous fish. I would rather trust Armando's stock as original, that is originating from the location without hybridization. There seems to be more reason for this than excepting Kallman's as the standard.

(snip)
>Since all the Endler's I have seen are from Dr. Kallman's stock and never
>have deviated from the original stock in about ten years time, I suspect
>all are homozygous and perhaps always were in the collection by Endler. So
>none to my knowledge have been isolated into homozygous strains
>representing new mutations during captivity. Thus we can assume no
>"artificial" (i.e.,man-made) homozygosity is involved.

This was proved false when we mixed the color markings of different groups.
If they are homozygous, then either the female or the male transmit only their own phenotype and the other genes are excluded, so that each brood carries only the characteristics of the gender that donated the color genes. (This cannot be false or they would not be homozygous.) This isn't the case. I introduced one of trusted stock from John Pitcarain's stock and the characteristics soon dispersed through the genes of the progeny. Now, 9 months or so later, I can barely find those characteristics in the tank at all. (In one since this is regrettable since he has a particularly beautiful hybrid, but the purpose was to mix the genes. He has kept his isolated.)
There were about 6 characteristics unique to individual fish that we traced and specifically traced those into fish who shared specific other characteristics with other parents. They are clearly not homozygous by nature.
As pointed out earlier by Dennis, I believe, inbreeding always produces a weakened strain of animal. Thus the hip dysphasia of Golden Retrievers, the deafness of many Dalmatians, the hoof and joint problems of certain horses, and, as notes by Dennis, the fish born with increasing numbers of genetic disorders.

Ronald A. Newcomb
COO Smith Technology Development LLC
Chairman of the Board of Directors, OCTuS Inc.

P.S. I just found a fish in my tanks with no black on his body. He is pale.
I have not seen this before. Is this the "albino" strain mentioned earlier?

=->In a message dated 10/29/1999 5:09:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
=->Armando.Pou1@bridge.bellsouth.com writes:
=->
=-><<   Of the Endler's LB I collected, over a hundred survived.  >>
=->
=->Armando,
=->
=->Would you say that all of your collected fish came from one restricted
=->location? or randomly from what may be disparate sub-populations? Were there
=->distinct phenotypes present together at your collecting site(s) - or did you
=->collect for phenotypic differences at various locations?
=->
=->    "Hammer"
=->
I'm afraid my collections were random, in  fact, I explored different parts of the lake on different trips.  For the most part the same phenotypes existed in the different "pockets" of the lake (I would say there are 10-15 "types" within the lake, of which I collected and brought back alive 7 or 8).  These "types" will breed true if isolated for a few generations(I do have a few of my favorites in indoor aquariums).  I believe that during heavy rain periods these "pockets" within the lake interconnect.  Although slightly different in coloration and finnage they do school together.  One interesting note, in the South Western quadrant of the lake, closer to the old dump (which was in the process of being removed during my last visit, (the lake is being made into a park of some sort)) the strain or type you refer to, that Dr. Kallman distributed, is more prevalent than in the other parts of the lake.  This part of the lake also produced the "all orange" form I wrote of.  To answer your question, there are variations in the percentages of the different phenotypes in different parts of the lake.  Which brings up another situation I've noticed in my pond, despite my large "seed stock" there seems to be dominant traits that are appearing more often in the offspring, and the "true endler" (for lack of a better description) is one of them.
On a side note: it sounds like I found a great variety of this fish, in truth, there are not that many "types" compared to the wild guppies I've collected from other single locations, which often yielded no two males that looked alike.

Chris Red replies to Dennis:

What about the introduction of unusual double
recessive traits?

This point may have been brought up before...

Everything that Bio 181 and 182 teaches you
contradicts this?  An important factor to concede
would be that these fish are able to remain fairly
constant for several generations of inbreeding.  But,
mutations, smaller size, susceptibility to disease do
increasing occur.
 

As an example:
I keep couple of different varieties of livebearers.
In one case (about two years ago), I bought two pair
of fancy tail guppies.  Unfortunately I didn't know as
much about tank care, so I lost one pair.  Several
generations of inbreeding later, with no new outside
genes, half the males have short unremarkable tails, I
have a couple of yellow/(not albino) colorless males.
Physical deformities in the young have become more
frequent.  Many die at unexpectedly youngs ages.  Some
are completely normal.  I am pretty sure that these
adverse results are not a condition of poor tank care,
I work on my tanks weekly, and the all do fairly well.

--- Dennis8425@aol.com wrote:
> From various comments here is it safe to than make
> some conclusions.
--------------<snip>-----------------------------
> 2.  Repeatedly inbreeding in itself will not
> deteriorate a species unless some
>     outside influence is involves.
>
> Dennis

Scott Davis adds:

I guess I'm confused as to just what a hybrid is. If a  stock is inbred and
becomes more and more homozygous, is that creating a hybrid or an aquarium
strain? Aquarists may isolate a sport and fix it. By breeding strong
specimens and ruthlessly culling weak and "undesirable" stock, they may end
up with a unique and robust fish - is that a hybrid though?  Isn't the
creation of a hybrid the crossing of a line with another "species" or
strain?

Snip ...Kallman received stock from Endler. Kallman is known to
>have divided this stock and shipped some to others in the US and Europe,
>thus reducing his gene pool. Some time after this, once they had inter-bred
>and changed the variable characteristic Endler reported, Kallman
distributed
>a homozygous group to the aquist community. Since this is so, that group is
>a hybrid...

Dennis responds:
In a message dated 10/30/1999 3:14:55 PM Central Daylight Time,
unclescott@prodigy.net writes:

<< Isn't the creation of a hybrid the crossing of a line with another "species" or
 strain? >>

I think the key word here is strain.  I'm not completely sure of the genetic
go fancy delta guppies but I believe they could be used as a strong example here.  They are
generally thought of as a single species.  Yet they are also thought of as a hybrid
strain off of the natural guppies.

However on the other hand if want to go by the definitions I was given years
ago in college a species is group of animals that can successfully reproduce to a
likeness of themselves.  A hybrid is a cross between related species that cannot
produce offspring that are like themselves.

I think using my old school definition we can look at the Iridescent genetics
in Bettas here and declare that blues are hybrid while steel and turquoise are
not. The Iridescent gene in Bettas is as BB - green or turquoise, Bb = Blue, and bb
is steel.  Yet are Blues bettas really a hybrid l species of bettas or simply
a hybrid strain of Betta splenden?

Dennis

Scott, you are correct, strictly defined a hybrid is a cross between genera or, more loosely, between species. It was given an even looser definition earlier in the discussion when my strain developed four males with swordtails and someone referred to them as a hybrid. We went on from there.
The word can be used to mean a cross between parents of different subspecies within one genera. With the Endler's it is a matter of discussion because Jim and I have different ideas as to what a pure line of Endler's looks like.
Jim wants to maintain the line he received from Kallman from Endler himself as the standard for a pure strain of Endler's Livebearer. I believe that the various strains should be mixed as they are in the wild to maintain a mixed gene pool. We each have our reasoning for these ideas. But this led to the word "hybrid" being used loosely.
Let someone else define exactly what the correct term should be. Likely your term "aquarium strain" is correct.
My point is that if any characteristic is isolate and inbred, then it has the same weight as any other characteristic that is isolated and inbred, be it termed hybridizing or developing an aquarium strain. This would be true of an all red Endler, and all green Endler, an all black Endler, a swordtail Endler, or any specific phenotype. Regardless of the inbred characteristic, it should have the same status.
My standard is, get as close as you can to those found in the wild.
Jim disagrees. He thinks the standard should be Kallman's stock and their progeny because of the probability of cross breeding with guppies both by aquist and in the wild population.

Ronald A. Newcomb
COO Smith Technology Development LLC
Chairman of the Board of Directors, OCTuS Inc.

Editors Note: In January of 2003 on the livebearer’s list the discussion of whether ELB is a Guppy or not went on for days. Highlights are here. This e-mail was in response to a question by someone (sorry, don’t remember who) that asked: I recently heard a rumor that Endlers have been shown by DNS analysis to be just guppies.

Anybody know anything about this?

welll, this is what we are doing...

we are in the middle of a biogeographic study of populations of

endler's that we collected in May 2000 from Cumana Venezuela.  They

are highly differentiated in coloration patterns: Endler's have black

crescent stripes, most have orange and black coloration on the dorsal

fin, double swords, and the saturation of the orange, all of these

characters make the populations from Cumana very very different.

Also, a morphological analysis of body shape shows that they are more

"fusiform", narrower mostly in the posterior part of the body,

compared even to high predation guppy populations.  But the

populations we collected easily cross with other guppy populations,

forming F1's and backcrosses.  Also, DNA analysis shows that they are

not very different from other guppy populations.  the amount of

variation between guppy populations across the range of guppies and

even between other Venezuelan populations is much much much greater

than the amount between endler's populations and any guppy

population.  This is the work of my phd student Heather Alexander at

Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada

Several things to remember:

this is work in progress

there are several ways to define species, there is no consensus among

evolutionary biologists.

  under at least one definition of species, i.e. a population that has

an independent evolutionary history, maybe they are a separate

species.  This would have to be a judgement call.

For conservation purposes, perhaps it would be best to name them as a

separate species.  But in my opinion it would be difficult to defend

naming them as a separate species, but not impossible, hard to know.

But they are a wonderful group of fish.

Felix Breden

# Felix Breden phone:(604) 291-5647                            #

# Associate Professor                                         #

# Department of Biological Sciences fax:(604) 291-3496                  #

# 8888 University Drive                                     #

# Simon Fraser University

      http://www.sfu.ca/biology/faculty/breden/

Richard Sexton Wrote:

Hi Felix;

Therein lies the crux: what is a species? What is a subspecies?

I've been chasing this question for 30 years and don't

really feel much closer to an answeer now than then.

I sort of like Bill Eschemeyers attitude toward subspecies: "I

don't like them, I think they should be reserved for things

like, say, Atlantic salmon and Pacific salmon" and it does make

you wonder why, say, Aphyosemion gardneri gardneri crosses

freely with Aphyosemion gardneri nigerianum (or any of the other

3 or 4 subspecies of garnderi. (the "A. gardneri obuduense vs. A

spoorenbergi" debate notwithstanding).

That Endlers have very similar DNS to guppies really comes

as no great shock. I get the impression then, that they're

geographically isolated from guppies, but not reproductivly

isolated, and if I were to sit firmly on the fence between

the splitters and lumpers I'd probably categorize them

as a subspecies - they're too widespread to just be called a unique

population, but not reproductivly isolated to qualify as

a full species.

Do all guppies and Endlers have the same number of haploid

chromosomes?

Harro Hieronimus wrote:

DNA may show that two fish are not related, but to say they were identic

is not possible by modern methods. You would have to compare the whole

DNA and not just the few parts we compare today! According to more

recent examinations of the gonopodium there may be small differences.

However, I doubt that we already know all the variability of the guppy

gonopodium as we don't know the behavioral differences yet.

Regarding species vs. subspecies: Donn Rosen published a study on

livebearers in 1979 where he nearly closed out all subspecies. According

to Mayr, subspecies must have a hybidization zone among each other. So

if they are geographically and reproductionally isolated, they are a

species. And if they cross, don't care, if they don't cross, it's an

important hint. If fishes hybridizing (in nature? In aquarium?) were one

species we only had four rainbowfish species!

Harro

Derek Lambert wrote:

OK I am going to repeat what I have been saying ever since I first saw

Endlers - They are a Guppy. Every bone in my body ( including the broken

ones) have always felt this was the case. All the evidence I have seen which

has tried to split them out as a separate species has come up short. With

the whole of the scientific community wanting to name this fish as a new

species it seems strange no-one has done it yet. So as a hobbyist and

ichthyologist I now put my neck on the line and declaire them a population

of the common Guppy. Sorry Dr Endler and all those out there that wish it

was something more.

Derek.

By the way, Guppies have always been the prettiest of the whole Poeciliidae

family!

Armando Pou Wrote:

Here we are again rehashing the same debate!  I think opinions and "feeling" are

great, but like politics and religion, this is one we are not going to resolve

here.  It seems to me that we should wait to see what Felix and Heather's work

pans out.  I can tell you from simple (nonscientific), first hand observations

that there are differences in the environment, behavior, and even morphology of

the two "species".  The whole "hybridization" issue will not prove or disprove

anything, as fertility rates vary greatly.  The "swordtail-platy" hybrids

beautifully illustrate this.

Armando

Then

I've spoken to Dr. Endler on this topic on a couple of occasions.  He was the

one who directed me on locating "Laguna de los Patos" in Cumana. (By the way

there are a couple of other similar bodies of water within miles of this

location which may well have other variations on the same theme that I did not

have sufficient time to explore.)  I experimented with hybridizing the Endler's

Livebearers with guppies and initially I had the same problems getting them to

cross.  It was only after the 2nd generation of ELBs was born that I was able to

cross them and then only after limiting their choices for mates in 10 gallon

aquariums.  The initial batches of hybrids proved to vary in their fertility.

Some however were quite fertile and subsequent lines where easily maintained.

I'm not sure why these differences existed.  All I can tell you is that "Laguna

de los patos" is a very different environment from where I've normally found

wild guppies, which prefer cooler streams. I also believe wild endlers are

hardier and more prolific than wild guppies (they are less likely to eat their

young even when poorly fed), at least that has been my observation on the

populations I've kept.

Armando

Felix again:

heather is preparing a article on this question that should be out in

a few months for an aquarium magazine, I can't remember which one

right now.

Well, definitely there are differences in morphology, endler's are

even more fusiform than high predation guppies.  the problem is that

as you go from low predation to high predation, guppies get more

fusiform, so one of Heather's questions is, are endler's just an

extension of this trend, or are the shape differences between

endler's and high predation guppies somehow qualitatively different

than the shift between low predation and high predation guppies.

Difficult question.

I wish we had the time and money to quantify differences between the

environment of high predation guppies in other coastal towns of

VEnezuela and the places we find endler's.  That is one of the

critical unanswered questions.

Behaviour?  I am really interested in reliable, repeatable

differences in behaviour between guppies and endler's.  we have

examined differences in female preference -  female endler's seem to

be more choosey when presented with a guppy male and an endler's

male, than regular guppy females are, but these behaviours are so

"plastic" that it is difficult to show real statistical differences.

preferences in these types of tests can vary for the same female from

one day to the next.  If anyone has any ideas on behavioural

differences between the two groups, I would love to hear about it.

thanks

felix

Then

as it was explained to me once, after someone publishes a systematic

revision of a group, it all comes down to whether the museum curators

change the tags or not.  they vote with their jar labels

felix

Then

That is what our statistics on morphology and coloration patterns do.

A discriminant function analysis asks how well these shape parameters

or color patterns do at classifying fish into what we know are the

proper groups.  Let me try that again. we measure a bunch of things

on guppies and endlers.  we come up with a function that shows what

characters differentiate them. we then statistically ask how good a

job we have done.  the statistics do a real good job of telling the

guppies from the endlers.

Also, just look at them, anyone can tell an endler's from a real

guppy.  but 95% of the time one can tell a guppy from isla margarita

from a guppy from the venezuelan mainland.  but does that make them a

different species?  Consider one of the characteristics of guppies,

one of the reasons why biologists study them so much - that is

because the males are soooooo variable.  each one is practically

different.  So, if you tried to name a new species based on the fact

that endler's had distinct male coloration patterns, people would

criticize you for using a character that is known to be highly

variable as the character that you are using to differentiate the

species.  Endler's have high proportion of yellow, almost never seen

in other guppy populations, same with the orange double sword, same

with the black crescent, ... but male coloration is very variable in

all guppy populations, so it doesn't make a good character upon which

to name a new species.

Morphologically (in terms of body shape) they are very different from

guppies, again the statistics tell you that if you take a P.

reticulata from Venezuela you can usually tell if it is guppy or

endler's just from how narrow the posterior part of the body is.

But, guppy populations from high to low predation vary a great deal

in this character also, so can you name a species on this character?

doubtful.

One important question is can the females tell the males apart? that

is one thing we are working on, but this is a very difficult question

to answer. Heather spent a lot of time trying to find the natural

distribution of endler's, trying to see if they occur in any streams

with regular guppies.  we couldn't find any instances of that.

doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but we couldn't find any

instances.

Endler's are different, they seem to have evolved somewhat

independently of other guppy populations.