African Tiger Fish (Hydrocynus) ID and Care Guide 3.0

[Fcotterill]

Hello, very good to see the interest generated in the diversity of Hydrocynus, and this most useful collation of diagnostic information. The diagnostic key illustrated with comparative drawings is from this paper:

Cotterill, F. P. D. & S. A. Goodier (2009) How many tigerfish species? Genetic insights into the evolution of Africa's Tigerfish and the taxonomic status of Tanzanian Hydrocynus. African Fisherman 20 (6): 37-41

The pdf can be downloaded from my website: https://sites.google.com/site/fpdcotterill/research/tigerfish-evolution

 

[scott s]

Wow....very impressive.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[cgjin]

great!

 

[Chicxulub]

Hello, very good to see the interest generated in the diversity of Hydrocynus, and this most useful collation of diagnostic information. The diagnostic key illustrated with comparative drawings is from this paper:

Cotterill, F. P. D. & S. A. Goodier (2009) How many tigerfish species? Genetic insights into the evolution of Africa's Tigerfish and the taxonomic status of Tanzanian Hydrocynus. African Fisherman 20 (6): 37-41

The pdf can be downloaded from my website: https://sites.google.com/site/fpdcotterill/research/tigerfish-evolution

My, how the most interesting things happen when I'm away from the site!

Dr. Cotterill, thank you so much for the reference for your work. I find the work that you guys have done to be fascinating! Thank you so much for your hard work in this field; it has opened up an entire new window of knowledge to those of us in the hobby!

 

[bizarremonsterfishes]

Thanks So Much For The Posts It Really Helped A lot. Lots of people have a hard time identifying these creatures. Here are some pictures of our fishes, they are still quite young.

 

[Chicxulub]

I see one brevis and a mess of forskahlii

 

[vincentwugwg]

This was a very well written article Rob! Thanks for putting in so much work. Much appreciated. Now, let's do one about sexing the ATF's. So far, from my personal observations..... the females have a smaller snout and their bodies are much 'taller'.

 

[Chicxulub]

Thank you.

While your observations on the gender of your tigerfish is consistent with my own intuition and knowledge of the general secondary sexually characteristics of fish, I'm curious to know: how did you determine the gender of yours?

According to the literature than I've read, the only population of ATF with reliable external traits to allow for second is the population of vittatus that inhabits the Zambezi above Victoria Falls. In those fish, the caudal find of males is yellow and in females is orange.

I would consider your observations to be a rough guideline and not a definitive way of telling the fish's gender. It should be especially useful in adult fish, but useless in the fingerings we commonly see fo sale.

Sent from my Samsung GS5 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[vincentwugwg]

I noticed the difference once they reached the 10 inch mark... before that, the differences were too subtle for most people to notice. Most of the females in question readily picked up food off the bottom as well. They(females in question) also demonstrated less aggressive behavior within the pack. I will try and get some pictures to get a better comparison of the subjects in question.

 

[Chicxulub]

But how did you determine that they were females?

Sent from my Samsung GS5 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App