Can Mouth Brooders Breed with Substrate Spawners?

[fisheatfish]

This came up in another thread and got me curious of the possibility. Did some searching but I can't find any definite answer. As if this topic is voodoo. I may be naive to think of the possibility but I'm sure it's happened in someone's home aquarium.

What about the possibility of artificial insemination? They do this with catfish & sturgeon where the milt or sperm is drawn from the male and eggs from the female. Unfortunately, it's death to the male during this procedure and eggs can be squeezed out of females. Koi farms squeeze out eggs & sperm from fishes and articially fertilize the eggs by mixing the two together so what are the possibility of mouth brooders mixing with substrate spawners?

Please, don't anyone be offended...I'm not out to become a mad scientist or play God in mixing two species. Just curious.

 

[Deansy]

It is an interesting topic. I don't think so just because I feel like the two fish just wouldn't understand what the other one was truing to do, so it would cause problems. With that being said I am not very knowledgeable about it and could be very wrong.

 

[fisheatfish]

Lets say a female substrate spawner lays her eggs onto a slate and a male mouth brooder fertilizes the eggs...can it really happen? Some of them do share the same body of water & rivers...severums for example. Can this happen in nature? Or can it happen in a controlled environment such as a home aquarium or even artificially doing this in a lab?

Sorry...I just have so many questions...lol! Anyone here ever watch the movie, The Island of Dr. Moreau? A movie based on a novel dating back to the 1800s about human beings crossed with animals. This led to arguments in human responsibilities and interfering with nature.

Lets just stick with fish.

 

[duanes]

Mouthbrooding seems to be a recent event in the evolution of cichlids (millions of years, compared to tens of millions of substrate spawning), and occurred when the depredation of substrate spawns necessitated it (probably in Africa).
Some cichlid, probably a substrate spawner, figured out (I know, way too anthropomorphic) it was safer to carry eggs with it, than to let them sit on a rock. Maybe when the male abandoned the spawn, and left the female alone (again speculation). So in all probability, it is possible.