"Common" CB Senegals vs Nigerian wild caught. Diff Sp?

[Hendre]

Guys I'm gonna take a shot in the dark here, but I think the generic mass bred Sp Senegalus are a different subspecies to those caught in Nigeria. I'm seriously wondering here, the physiological differences are too big to just pass up. I have spoken to the professor who works in genetics and he says such major physiological differences are a big indicator that they could be seperate, especially since wild caught sens are rare and I don't think many people know exactly where they came from which throws it off further.

The main thing throwing me off is the tail shape, it's quite different and every captive bred specimen has this pointed tail type as shown:

In April:


My wild caught fish on the other hand has a very rounded tail, it was slightly tattered as shown here


Now 6 months later looks like so:


I find this far too obvious to just leave be. This is the obvious part for me.

The professor is also skeptical about the captive bred head shape, I'm thinking that the original broodstock must have had shorter mouths. Especially with the shorter timespan these fish have been kept in the hobby and the long maturation times and a lack of scientific proof it's hard to say what it is exactly causing the short heads. This is something I still have doubts about, and is another blaringly obvious difference between the two.

What do you guys think? Could P. senegalus sp "Nigeria" be a thing?

Notes: I'm still trying to find the exact catch location of my poly, but I know it's from Nigeria. Also if we raise funds we could always have a genetic analysis done

 

[magpie]

I am far from expert in all of this but in my mind you just have a WC Sen with a known catch location.

CB Endlis can have totally different head shapes than WC. And a Faranah Endli isn't a new species... it's just a WC Endli with known catch location.

I guess I'm not totally following you. The CB Sens are so overbred of course they're going to look different....

 

[kno4te]

Maybe Hao can she’d some light or an opinion.

 

[Mighty Wizard]

The Senegalus is easily the most widespread Polypterid, and there are probably a great variety of distinct, and old colonies, so while they all seem superficially similar, it's quite possible, and likely even, that there's a wide array of subspecies.

It would be very interesting to do an actual survey on the matter, to travel through Africa and sample P. Senegalus specimen throughout their native range. Might even be something of a dream job.

As for the specific blunt nose characteristic, I've read several places that it's a result of inbreeding and degenerating stock. Remember that in captive situations, less than optimal offspring is allowed to survive, to be sold off and potentially be used as breeding stock by somebody else.

That one in the second pictures has some beautiful patterns by the way, never seen that in a Senegal before.

 

[jaws7777]

Im a no.

All of the cb polys differ in some way from there wc counterparts.
The differences your seeing are found in all if the cb's we keep. Wc vs cb endlicheri differences have been widely discussed. Burbotman just touched on the headshape difference between cb and wc congicus.
Same goes for dels, koliba, and ornates

 

[jaws7777]

This is thought to be another subspecies so to say.

http://www.polypterus.info/p_meridionalis.htm

Wether it really exists...who knows.

 

[Hao]

CB senegals have been mass bred for so many years that their headshape looks different from their wild caught counterpart.

 

[Vancouver_98683]

Since there's lots of u with a CB Senegal. Pics below Just for fun. Do a comparison versus these wild Caughts. These Senegals were pulled from the lakes, drainage, pools, and streams for there pictorial debut.

 

[Mighty Wizard]

Im a no.

All of the cb polys differ in some way from there wc counterparts.
The differences your seeing are found in all if the cb's we keep. Wc vs cb endlicheri differences have been widely discussed. Burbotman just touched on the headshape difference between cb and wc congicus.
Same goes for dels, koliba, and ornates

As stated earlier, P. Senegalus is established over vast distances in Africa, and likely has been for thousands of years. As it is quite impossible for the entire P. Senegalus population to interact with each other, you end up with separate colonies, or populations if you will, that evolve independently of each other. This is perhaps the most common way in which evolution produce new species. In short, simple logic tells us that there must be several subspecies of P. Senegalus.

 

[Vancouver_98683]

I'm gonna spam Hendre thread with the Designer Gucci version. Bam here it is!