H. carpintis 'Escondido' vs 'Chairel'

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RD. said:
A past discussion on this topic ......




http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...-Carpintis-Vontehilllo-vs-Carpintis-Escondido
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Yea thats the discussion I was talking about earlier, amongst 1-2 others. Lot of good info there. That's where I came to the conclusion that they are mor or less the same fish and just vary with each batch collected.

Thise quote pretty much summed up everything I've read:

dogofwar said:
H. carpintis "Escondido" hails from Laguna La Escondida near the mouth of the Panuco River / Tampico, MX.

H. carpintis "Chairel" hails from Laguna del Chareil near the mouth of the Panuco River / Tampico, MX.

H. carpintis "Vontehillo" allegedly hails from an area just north of Laguna del Chareil near the mouth of the Panuco River / Tampico, MX.

Here's a map showing just how close Laguna La Escondida, Laguna del Chareil and the description of the location for "Vontehillo" are:
http://travelingluck.com/North+America/Mexico/Veracruz-Llave/_3514838_Laguna+la+Vega+Escondida.html#local_map

I find it really hard to believe that the water (and fish) from these three locations don't regularly mix...

As a result, perceived differences among the different varieties of carpintis are more a result of variability among stock in this population (i.e. all fish in a given population don't look identical)...and concentration of these select traits as a result of aquarium/pond breeding vs. differences that would arrise as a result of geographic isolation or other natural factors.

That said, I agree that it makes sense to keep the lines of fish separate...although I do not trust that any or all of the lines, other than those trace-able to specific collecting trips by specific people, are "pure" at this point.

Matt

PS This will be my only contribution to this thread.
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This often boils down to whether one falls into the lumper, or splitter camp. For vendors new names equates to new excitement and some increased sales so their agenda may not always be in the hobbys best interest. This is why some of the past discussions became overly heated. Having said that I am a firm believer in keeping different geographical variants separate. Cichlids can & often will evolve differently, even when found in the same body of water only a short distance apart.
 
The average person hasn't caught on yet, but the truth is the lumpers are taking a beating as a result of genetic research, which is finding find more, not less, diversity among animals that look the same or very similar. There is a substantial and still growing volume of literature in recent years across many life forms about the discovery of new species among forms that were previously considered to be the same. To get an idea of what's happening just do a web search on "cryptic species" or "cryptic diversity".

I'll try to keep from too long a post on it, but here's a sampling:
Underwater Journal
“For more than a century, ichthyologists have argued that the Pacific and Atlantic goliath grouper were the same species, because the two populations are identical in body form and markings,” said Dr. Matthew Craig of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. “It wasn’t until the use of genetic testing techniques on fish DNA became widespread that the argument was settled.”
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Caption to photo in article:
While outwardly identical, the Eastern Pacific goliath (Epinephelus quinquefasciatus) is in fact a separate species from the western group.
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What your Biology class likely didn't teach you:
Live science
Scientists disagree about how to define the term "species" and what separates species from one another biologically, though some say that a species is a group that can mate with one another and produce offspring that are not sterile. However, this biological definition doesn't always hold up, for instance, with coyotes and wolves (considered separate species), which can successfully produce fertile offspring.
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If you do some reading on the subject, some scientists question the usefulness of the concept of "species" in describing biological diversity.

Reference illustrating what's happening in science:
Genes and calls reveal five-fold greater diversity of Amazon frog species
The study, published in the open access journal ZooKeys, found up to 11 species among populations of what were previously considered two widespread treefrog species. Based on analyses of the genetic variation of dozens of Amazonian populations across six countries, the team lead by Marcel Caminer from the Museum of Zoology at Catholic University of Ecuador, found unequivocal evidence of the existence of a large amount of the so called "cryptic diversity." The genetic results were corroborated with detailed analyses of male calls and body shape and color.
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"Cryptic species" are two or more species mistakenly classified as a single one. Traditionally, taxonomists recognized species purely on morphological grounds and therefore failed to discriminate between species with similar appearance. The increasing use of DNA sequences for species recognition is demonstrating that current estimates vastly underestimate the true Amazonian species richness.
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A cichlid reference:
Genetic diversity within the genus Cynotilapia
And finally, our study does not support the suggestion by Konings (2001) that Cynotilapia sp. “black eastern” is closely related to C. sp. “black dorsal”, rather C. sp. “black dorsal” is sister taxa to C. sp. “chinyankwazi” and C. sp. “chinyamwezi” (see Figure 2). Konings suggested the close relationship of these two taxa based on their similarity in black colouration, but as stated above, similar colour patterns are prone to parallel evolution and do not always reflect close relationship.
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Another important finding is the genetic diversity unraveled between Cynotilapia sp. “chinyamwezi” and C. sp. “chinyankwazi”, in which the former is regarded as just a population of the later. The genetic distance between these two (D = 0.11) is even one of the largest among Cynotilapia species/taxa. With such differentiation, it can be suggested that there is little or no gene flow between these two and they can as well be regarded distinct species.
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Illustrates the difficulty with drawing conclusions on animals we haven't studied closely enough or on which the genetic study has not yet been done.
 
RD. said:
And here's another cichlid reference from a topic that I started a few years back:


http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...f-citrinellus-A-potential-case-of-F1-Midevils
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Read the thread and, yeah, it's gotten really interesting-- and ever more complicated for fishkeepers paying attention to the science or trying to figure out what they have. Few people are aware that some something very similar has apparently happened in Lake Malawi as crater lake Amphilophus-- very recent development of the current biodiversity in the Lake, as in potentially within 2 or 3 hundreds, not thousands of years-- Link

In some cases, fish with greater morphological distinctiveness over their geological range turn out to be genetically quite homogeneous while fish with little morphological distinction over their range turn out to be genetically much more diverse. Meanwhile, fish that look the same and are swimming in a group at the same location can turn out to be different species. link
 
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