ID please

[bobVillanueva]

this is the locally called "dragon fin" which i talked about in my past post... hehe.. a long looong time ago...

anyway, i bought him months ago as a present for my little cuz.. and the kid did a pretty good job of raising him... save for feeding him swordtails, angel fishes and a couple of DISCUSES.... and for that reason he gave it back to me... i think it's just been less than a year since i gave it to him at 1" or so....

and man! has he grown!!!! he's roughly a foot now! from estimate i think he is longer than my almost 3 month old RTC! i've temporarily placed him with my gator, rtc etc tank....

he'll move to the oscar paroon shark cK tank by next week dya think he'll do fine there?

anyway, we call these fishes "dragon fin" here in the philippines.. and some suggested that those fishes were senegals.. now for the sake of having a confirmation, could ya finally id him?

here's him with my RTC...

 

[uwe]

Hello,

looks like a very pale Polypterus lapradei - it seems to me i could see a bit of the characteristic pattern on him ... Is this a "Lutino"? This means: An albinotic individual with "normal" eye colour.

Greetings

Uwe

 

[Cohazard]

Hello,

looks like a very pale Polypterus lapradei - it seems to me i could see a bit of the characteristic pattern on him ... Is this a "Lutino"? This means: An albinotic individual with "normal" eye colour.

Greetings

Uwe

"Lutino" is a term used by bird enthusiasts (specifically cockatiels). For some reason, people who keep oscars started to use the term to describe oscars that were mostly white with some black pigment mixed in.


On MFK, we already have a term for that, we call it "platinum" but the actual name for that form of albinism is called "leucism" and the fish would be leucistic.



It looks like a stressed out lap, and in a few days it will get it's pattern back.

 

[Infblue]

agree its a P. bichir lapradei. although i'm not sure if that means all 'dragon fin' are lapradei. i would think that 'dragon fin' would be senegalus too. who knows. maybe yours was misID when young. just guessing.

and no the fish is not a special color morph or anything. Just a light lapradei that could be due to environement (eg. substrate color), or it could just be the way it is, or could be a little stressed.

this is a nigerian lapradei, and they can vary a lot in color intensity and pattern contrast.

 

[Delhezi222]

Agreed. Definitely a Lap.

 

[uwe]

Hi Infblue.

it's curious but in Germany the most lapradei are grey without any pattern. That looks like some preferences in cases of export from Guinea or Nigeria. I could see that most bichirs are more expensive in the USA than in Germany ... here you can get a lapradei for 30 Euro ...

 

[Infblue]

hi uwe,

yeah its interesting. check out the thread below. the pics are all Nigerian lapradei. they do vary a lot in color intensity and contrast, but the characteristic pattern is always there, regardless of whether the pattern is well defined or faded. Furthermore, lapradei can be heavily influenced by the environment, e.g. substrate color.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88391

i personally like the Guinea lapradei more. their patterns are characteristically different from Nigeria lapradei.

 

[cenecker]

Lap for sure, my lap is also patternless and looks almost identical to yours..

 

[channarox]

definitly a lap.
im looking for one myself.
hard to come by in sg.

 

[channarox]

oh btw,here in singapore,
many bichir species are known as dragon fish,or dragon fin and all those wierd names.
and they call endlis dragon kings.