TATF, VATF, Lake Tanganyika, exporters and why you don't know what ATF you have.

Chicxulub said:

vamptrev said:

It was my understanding that these were the real TATF, it seems to me that alot of other atfs comming in as tatf are actually vatfs.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Click to expand...

The problem is that the exporters send mixed shipments of tigers. The most recent import that I'm aware of had vatf, gatf, batf and (real) tatf all in the same shipment sent in as "Congo". Brevis and Tanzaniae are both quite obviously not from the Congo river and are in fact not even found in the same country.

The issues we have with imports are threefold: mixed shipments, difficulty in ID and the convoluted scientific literature on the fish in Hydrocynus.

Mixed shipments create a situation that makes it unbelievably difficult to be sure what we are getting. The existence of this problem is something I have long suspected but have only recently been able to confirm via discussions with an importer. Simply put, the exporters are just shippers. They're not the people out there actually catching the fish. They collect fish from the fishermen to be sold to importers stateside.

Lake Tanganyika based exporters are the worst. The have reasonable access to to fishermen on the Zambezi (vatf), Rufiji (tatf) Nile (batf & fatf), Lake Tanganyika (vatf), Congo (gatf, vatf and one as yet unnamed species). So while I'm quite sure we've seen some real tatf, mine included, it is possible that were getting a vatf variant that is strikingly similar to them in mixed shipments.

The final issue that complicates things is the fact that science doesn't even have a proper grip on the genus. As I've discussed before, we have five described species of atf. The problem is that genetically, there are ten lineages. Gatf, batf and fatf are all well supported genetically, but vatf and tatf are difficult to differentiate to say the very least.

As we know it now, Hydrocynus vittatus is actually a species complex that consists of four different lineages that are genetically separate enough as to not be able to breed with one another. I suspect that we have three of them in the hobby but data is lacking in order to be able to like which fish type in someones aquarium is which vatf haplogroup as described by Goodier et al. Clarifying this issue is something I'd like to do but I fear that it may not be possible without a trip to Africa.

Tatf's roll in all of this further complicates things. It is a direct descendant of the vittatus complex via allopatric speciation, making it a sister lineage to the vittatus complex. Some even consider it to be a member of the the vittatus complex. In fact, until 1986 the Tanzanian tiger fish was actually considered to be Hydrocynus vittatus.

Based on how incredibly closely related these two species are, they are fantastically difficult to tell apart. I've always been very careful when advising people on what I feel their fish may be that it is at best an educated guess as the fish need to be 8-10 inches to tell for sure. When they're tiny, you can't see lateral line scales and the fairly destinctive and unique colors that both species develop aren't yet apparent.

Without those traits, NO ONE can make more than an educated guess. I counted scales on my little tatf by clove oiling the little guy and whipping out a magnifying glass. He also developed the grey color, half stripes and steel blue adipose fin of the big ones. Basically, he looked just like the adults. I sold him because I thought they were more common than they now appear to be. This is why I say that decision was the worst one I've ever made in thus hobby!

I can't help but notice that my tatf and the handful of other confirmed specimens have a much more massive and blunter head than do vatf. I have a photo of a 9" 'real' tatf to post in order to compare to MonsterFangs beautiful 'false' tatf (really vatf), but its on my PC that I won't have access to until tonight.

I fear the revelation of the existence of the tatfs has caused a bit of excitement that caused fish that aren't really tatf to be labeled as such as a result of market demand and enthusiasm. I'm sorry if I misidentified anyone's fish, but I was always careful to caveat that they are very hard to tell apart when small.

Hopefully you guys don't eat me up too bad over this. I am a scientist and a big part of being a scientist is changing your perceptions to match available data. We all said that these little 2" fish look like a tatf, but until they're bigger, there's no way to be sure.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

Click to expand...

DB junkie said:

I think they're great from the gill plate forward......

From the gill plate back makes me sad. IF ANYONE knows where to get 100% positive ID'd Vittatus I'd love to know where they are.

Click to expand...

MonsterFang said:

Here's my 9" TATF

Click to expand...