Dorado ID... frankie or brassie?
- Thread starter Jakob
- Start date
I'm headed back down to Uruguay in December.
Don't think we'll be fishing for big S. brasiliensis again but we usually seine up a bunch of small and medium ones. I'll try to take pictures.
Matt
Don't think we'll be fishing for big S. brasiliensis again but we usually seine up a bunch of small and medium ones. I'll try to take pictures.
Matt
I think a few of you have, and still are, completely and utterly missing my point.
The OP's fish is brasiliensis.
This can't be argued, can't be debated, nothing about it. It was immediately clear to me, and I was hoping to stimulate you all to go read the sticky and apply actual diagnostic info to the fish, instead of presumptions and assumptions, but instead everyone just dug into their preconceived notions and didn't want to think.
This fish has 16 scale rows between the dorsal fin insertion and the lateral line. If it were a frankie, it would have 11-14.
C'mon guys, I did everything but come out and say it. I even posted pics...
The OP's fish is brasiliensis.
This can't be argued, can't be debated, nothing about it. It was immediately clear to me, and I was hoping to stimulate you all to go read the sticky and apply actual diagnostic info to the fish, instead of presumptions and assumptions, but instead everyone just dug into their preconceived notions and didn't want to think.
This fish has 16 scale rows between the dorsal fin insertion and the lateral line. If it were a frankie, it would have 11-14.
C'mon guys, I did everything but come out and say it. I even posted pics...
Isn't that what I said?! (based on another key diagnostic characteristic, its collection location)
Matt
Matt
That's not a valid enough way to say whether or not it's a certain species, for the same reasons mentioned. So many invasive species in the u.s, and you can't get it into your head that other countries may do the same thing, such as buy a fish they can't keep. Once you get into ACTUAL characteristics of the fish itself that ISNT location, then you're statement would have been accepted much earlier, and a lot of this small talk could have been avoided.
Yes, but you couldn't defend your point. There are dozens of franciscanus brought in every year and marketed as being brasiliensis from Argentina or Paraguay or wherever. Unfortunately, alleged point of capture is NOT a valid taxonomic diagnostic trait in this hobby because of the simple fact that exporters, importers and sellers all lie to make a buck, especially after they saw how quickly people snapped up real brassies at crazy prices when Wes finally brought them in. The fish has to come from someone like Wes before the community as a whole is willing to believe what is said about collection points. These claims are invariably struck down and are invariably correctly struck down because the fish being imported ARE franciscanus. If you can't articulate a cogent defense for you point of view, be prepared to be called to task for your inability.
The only real reason I even spoke up in this thread is because everyone was wrong for once, and I had hoped that this would give people a reason to think outside the box.
It didn't.
The answer was right in front of you the entire time. You used a source that I introduced to the hobby, you've probably read the sticky, and you had all the pieces in front of you but didn't put them together. I was REALLY hoping that you'd count those dots on scale rows and go read the sticky or the paper that I gave to this hobby and say "wait... I WAS right and I DO have proof!"
I was actually really rooting for you in this discussion.
The relative merits of morphological vs. other diagnostic factors, especially from pictures, are definitely debatable.
The clearest characteristic in this case is geography. The natural range of one species is quite limited (S. franciscanus) and the other is quite broad (S. brasiliensis) and includes the alleged origin of the OP's fish. That's part of the scientific description of the species.
Are there charlatans who incorrectly label fish? Sure. Was there any evidence of that in this case? Not that I can tell. The source of the fish was both credible and open to answering questions.
I've been able to find no evidence of introductions of S. franciscanus in Paraguay. S. brasiliensis is native there. Why would anyone - especially on a widespread basis - introduce a fish from thousands of miles away in Brazil?
To me the morphological date confirms the location data. My eyes aren't good enough to count scales from a picture. Preponderance of the evidence is all that you can hope for if you don't catch the fish yourself (which I'm going to be doing in a few weeks)!
As someone who's caught plenty of S. brasiliensis, I'd assume that S. brasiliensis became the holy grail because it's infrequently exported. There aren't commercial exports from Uruguay (and infrequent ones from Argentina). The fish aren't especially rare in their native waters in Uruguay (although over-fishing has impacted them), just rare in the hobby.
A good sized import or three of S. brasiliensis (and, say, H. lacerdae and H. australis) could probably satisfy worldwide demand for these fish for a long time.
Contact Felipe and I'd bet that he could make that happen...
Matt
The clearest characteristic in this case is geography. The natural range of one species is quite limited (S. franciscanus) and the other is quite broad (S. brasiliensis) and includes the alleged origin of the OP's fish. That's part of the scientific description of the species.
Are there charlatans who incorrectly label fish? Sure. Was there any evidence of that in this case? Not that I can tell. The source of the fish was both credible and open to answering questions.
I've been able to find no evidence of introductions of S. franciscanus in Paraguay. S. brasiliensis is native there. Why would anyone - especially on a widespread basis - introduce a fish from thousands of miles away in Brazil?
To me the morphological date confirms the location data. My eyes aren't good enough to count scales from a picture. Preponderance of the evidence is all that you can hope for if you don't catch the fish yourself (which I'm going to be doing in a few weeks)!
As someone who's caught plenty of S. brasiliensis, I'd assume that S. brasiliensis became the holy grail because it's infrequently exported. There aren't commercial exports from Uruguay (and infrequent ones from Argentina). The fish aren't especially rare in their native waters in Uruguay (although over-fishing has impacted them), just rare in the hobby.
A good sized import or three of S. brasiliensis (and, say, H. lacerdae and H. australis) could probably satisfy worldwide demand for these fish for a long time.
Contact Felipe and I'd bet that he could make that happen...
Matt
