Wow Viktor, made me do a lot of reading! Firstly in my last post I used the word occidentalis instead of auchenoglanis initially by mistake as I hadn't had my coffee yet. Occidentalis would perhaps imply that I agree with the 2013 "re-evaluation of the species-level diversity within the genus auchenoglanis" (Geerincks & Vreven) which I just re-read. I had corresponded with Dr. Tom Geerinicks in 2012 regarding auchenoglanis and parauchenoglanis before the paper was released. In this case I'm inclined to agree with the findings therein that a. occidentalis, a. auciteps, a. sacchii, a. tanganicanus, a. tchadiensis and a. wittei are all synonyms for one species- a. occidentalis. There are observable differences between those mentioned but apparently not enough morphological differences to separate them as different species especially lacking is enough molecular data which could prove things to be otherwise. It's quite possible that over time the same species has evolved in different regions and distant rivers and reflect those regional differences by virtue of color, patterns, fin shapes and size due to adaptation in disparate environs. That's the lumper view in a nutshell I suppose. Then there's terms like subspecies, strain, cf., etc. I couldn't give a good definition of those in any scientific parlance so I won't. Planet Catfish shows auchenoglanididae containing 9 species which for fish keeper purposes is a good thing whether genetically correct or not, as it's easier to describe different varieties in forums like this, eh? Scientific lumper and pragmatic splitter…
Anyway very interesting that the Volta cat is slower growing and remains smaller than the others, no contradiction to the myth so far...
Anyway very interesting that the Volta cat is slower growing and remains smaller than the others, no contradiction to the myth so far...
