Please help ID

These arrived under the trade name Oscillated Snakehead... I thought they were Channa pleurophthalma but upon seeing them, they looked very different...



The spots are too many, too low to be pleurophthalma.
The body shape, head shape, blue coloration, markings on the fins are similar to C marulia. I have had other C. marulias and the ones I had didn't have orange streak and spots.

Could it be a variant of C. marulia?

Whachatink?

chronick;4832774; said:

channa marulius

Click to expand...

thanks looks like its only you who can comment... was hoping to get the thoughts of others in this site... hehe

Let me repeat my reply...

I see the similarity with C marulia / marulius... the body shape, blueish coloration, fins, and markings on the fins. But I have C marulia and the juvies look like this:



They have now grown to a foot, and look like this:


I never saw them with spots and orange streaks. Unless these above are not C marulia to begin with... C maruliodes perhaps?

BTW my friend (who lived in Florida and catch C marulia often) thinks this one above is a C marulia and not C maruliodes...

Do marulias have variants? such that this batch (the juvies with spots) is totally different from my previous marulia order (the juvies without spots)?