Sp. Faranah from rehoboth aquatics

[Owens]

Since Owens is back, maybe he can chime in the discussion

Throwing me right back into the fire, eh?

Let me preface this with saying I could be wrong in my assumptions, I haven't kept up with things over the past year or so.

Let me get this off my chest.

Alright, first of all guys. Please, I beg of this community and to vendors, lets stop naming these fish by catch locations, at least in its current iteration, is just incredibly confusing. This is made worse when we look at how similar some species are, in this case Faranah Laps and Sp. Dabola.

Sp. Dabola is an un-categorized species, assumed to be a natural hybrid. This has NOTHING to do with what people are calling Endli and Lap Dabolas, these are just named after their catch locations. This is just one example and many people looking to get into "designer" polypterus have no idea whats going on, even in this forum which is probably one of the most educational sources out there.

As far as I know, there is know no such thing as a Sp. faranah lap either, which is something I have seen thrown around recently. Faranah, again, is simply a catch location within Guinea and we have known and had Guinean laps for years now. I have no idea why we started adding specific catch locations as a method of identification.

In biology, a species (abbreviated sp., with the plural form species abbreviated spp.) is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. Lets stop throwing this around if we don't understand what it means.

(take this with a grain of salt, my cichla knowledge is limited, but as far as I know...)
I don't see this problem with other species throughout the forums, for example, Cichla also have alot of different subspecies and natural hybrids throughout south america, however they all are properly distinguished between each other. As far as I know, they dont generalize the species based on catch locations. It would be like identifying cichla based on the river instead of their actual names! (aside from the species named after the rivers, of course) It makes absolutely no sense to me.

A much more simple method of identification would be something like: Country, species, catch location.

Guinea Lap, caught in Faranah.
Guinea Endlicheri, caught in Dabola.
Sp. Dabola, obviously caught in Dabola.

This is much more clear and stops a lot of unnecessary confusion. Just an idea off the top of my head though, I'm sure there are better solutions.

Instead we throw around catch locations with species, subspecies and even Sp. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

/rant over

As for your new specimen J jaws7777 , absolute stunner. Definitely jealous. I'm certainly no expert at identifying Guinea laps vs Sp. Dabola since I actually have never owned either and there is a lot of confusion regarding the two.

Below are 3 pictures, the first is jaws' , second is a Sp. Dabola I snagged off of Vancouver_98683 and then a guinea lap I randomly found.



As you can see, I think the fish in question is extremely similar to the guinea lap, in both headshape and vertical line count, as well as overall pattern. I would guess, that this is just an exceptionally marked Guinea Lapradei or if we used my nomenclature, a Guinean Lap, caught in Faranah.

 

[jaws7777]

What do you think guys pull her put ?

 

[jaws7777]

Throwing me right back into the fire, eh?

Let me preface this with saying I could be wrong in my assumptions, I haven't kept up with things over the past year or so.

Let me get this off my chest.

Alright, first of all guys. Please, I beg of this community and to vendors, lets stop naming these fish by catch locations, at least in its current iteration, is just incredibly confusing. This is made worse when we look at how similar some species are, in this case Faranah Laps and Sp. Dabola.

Sp. Dabola is an un-categorized species, assumed to be a natural hybrid. This has NOTHING to do with what people are calling Endli and Lap Dabolas, these are just named after their catch locations. This is just one example and many people looking to get into "designer" polypterus have no idea whats going on, even in this forum which is probably one of the most educational sources out there.

As far as I know, there is know no such thing as a Sp. faranah lap either, which is something I have seen thrown around recently. Faranah, again, is simply a catch location within Guinea and we have known and had Guinean laps for years now. I have no idea why we started adding specific catch locations as a method of identification.

In biology, a species (abbreviated sp., with the plural form species abbreviated spp.) is the basic unit of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. Lets stop throwing this around if we don't understand what it means.

(take this with a grain of salt, my cichla knowledge is limited, but as far as I know...)
I don't see this problem with other species throughout the forums, for example, Cichla also have alot of different subspecies and natural hybrids throughout south america, however they all are properly distinguished between each other. As far as I know, they dont generalize the species based on catch locations. It would be like identifying cichla based on the river instead of their actual names! (aside from the species named after the rivers, of course) It makes absolutely no sense to me.

A much more simple method of identification would be something like: Country, species, catch location.

Guinea Lap, caught in Faranah.
Guinea Endlicheri, caught in Dabola.
Sp. Dabola, obviously caught in Dabola.

This is much more clear and stops a lot of unnecessary confusion. Just an idea off the top of my head though, I'm sure there are better solutions.

Instead we throw around catch locations with species, subspecies and even Sp. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

/rant over

As for your new specimen J jaws7777 , absolute stunner. Definitely jealous. I'm certainly no expert at identifying Guinea laps vs Sp. Dabola since I actually have never owned either and there is a lot of confusion regarding the two.

Below are 3 pictures, the first is jaws' , second is a Sp. Dabola I snagged off of Vancouver_98683 and then a guinea lap I randomly found.

View attachment 1257189 View attachment 1257190 View attachment 1257191

As you can see, I think the fish in question is extremely similar to the guinea lap, in both headshape and vertical line count, as well as overall pattern. I would guess, that this is just an exceptionally marked Guinea Lapradei or if we used my nomenclature, a Guinean Lap, caught in Faranah.

There are tests being done on sp. Dabola and the preliminary results are showing it to be its own species.

As far sp. Dabola how diff is it to any endli head shape and some racing stripes but overall bands are.pretty much the same dude.

Tjeres some older pfk threads that discuss sp.faranah and sp.dabola being lumped into the same fish infact the sp.dabola are caught in faranah lol atleast thats what i was shown. Shoot nigerian lap looks similar to smaller pbb, faranah lap can look similar to other laps i agree there are similarities but just basing off of appearence, kingels descritpions, older discussions and the fact that there are also many differences between the 3 pics you posted still dont look faranah lap to me im not into anything designer either bro i value my cb polys just as much as my wc but hey i could absolutely be wrong too

 

[jaws7777]

Look im cool with this fish being a captive bred nigerian lap. It looks great so who cares but for the sake of discussion the one thing imo woth faranah laps is how the snout look which looks allot diff than this poly in question. Be easy if others would chime in on the thread instead of offline though lol

 

[Owens]

There are tests being done on sp. Dabola and the preliminary results are showing it to be its own species.

As far sp. Dabola how diff is it to any endli head shape and some racing stripes but overall bands are.pretty much the same dude.

Tjeres some older pfk threads that discuss sp.faranah and sp.dabola being lumped into the same fish infact the sp.dabola are caught in faranah lol atleast thats what i was shown. Shoot nigerian lap looks similar to smaller pbb, faranah lap can look similar to other laps i agree there are similarities but just basing off of appearence, kingels descritpions, older discussions and the fact that there are also many differences between the 3 pics you posted still dont look faranah lap to me im not into anything designer either bro i value my cb polys just as much as my wc but hey i could absolutely be wrong too

So, if nothing has been concluded, why are we identifying it as such?

As for Nigerian Laps looking like PBBs, I think that's far more of a stretch than talking about a unidentified hybrid looking like one of its potential originators.

 

[jaws7777]

So, if nothing has been concluded, why are we identifying it as such?

As for Nigerian Laps looking like PBBs, I think that's far more of a stretch than talking about a unidentified hybrid looking like one of its potential originators.

mhhh you dont thing young pbb resemble nigerian lap ?

I guess i can ask the same question if nothing concluded why would we identify it as an f lap ? I didnt identify anything bit agree with or disagree with some opinions tho.

The reason why most people refer to there endli as faranah endli or nigerian lap or what ever i think is to say which fish they are referring to since most have multiple laps/endli not to assign some designer trait to it. If polyaddict mentioned his endli i would have no clue which one hes talking about...if he says his dabola endli or black volta now i know which one hes referring too

 

[Owens]

mhhh you dont thing young pbb resemble nigerian lap ?

I guess i can ask the same question if nothing concluded why would we identify it as an f lap ? I didnt identify anything bit agree with or disagree with some opinions tho.

The reason why most people refer to there endli as faranah endli or nigerian lap or what ever i think is to say which fish they are referring to since most have multiple laps/endli not to assign some designer trait to it. If polyaddict mentioned his endli i would have no clue which one hes talking about...if he says his dabola endli or black volta now i know which one hes referring too

My man, did you read my post? My entire point is that we SHOULDN'T identify it as a Faranah Lap, haha.

Its a Polypterus Lapradei found in the Faranah region of Guinea, to be specific.

These are two very different things in identification.

Edit: I mean, I guess if no one cares that they are misidentifying a fish, then its a non-issue, but considering we pay hundreds of dollars for specific fish, I think its very important.; at least in my eyes.

Edit2: I do not think my PBB and Nigerian Lap look alike. They are also classified as different sub-species.

 

[jaws7777]

My man, did you read my post? My entire point is that we SHOULDN'T identify it as a Faranah Lap, haha.

Its a Polypterus Lapradei found in the Faranah region of Guinea, to be specific.

These are two very different things in identification.

Edit: I mean, I guess if no one cares that they are misidentifying a fish, then its a non-issue, but considering we pay hundreds of dollars for specific fish, I think its very important.; at least in my eyes.

Brotha if you wanna type all that when talking about a poly knock ya self out lol.


"I mean, I guess if no one cares that they are misidentifying a fish, then its a non-issue, but considering we pay hundreds of dollars for specific fish, I think its very important.; at least in my"

You should dig into where sp.dabola are caught lol

 

[Owens]

Brotha if you wanna type all that when talking about a poly knock ya self out lol.


"I mean, I guess if no one cares that they are misidentifying a fish, then its a non-issue, but considering we pay hundreds of dollars for specific fish, I think its very important.; at least in my"

You should dig into where sp.dabola are caught lol

My friend you should dig into where they are caught!

You realize Faranah and Dabola are two little towns in Guinea? They are like 30 miles apart. If you look at a map of Guinea, you will also notice there is no river running through Dabola, only the Niger to the right of it.

I would guess that Polypterus caught out of the northern end are called "Dabola" and the southern end "Faranah". Were talking about a handful of miles in the same water body.

 

[jaws7777]

Look fellas in a few days if one of my kids take a liking to it it'll have some corny name and this will all be forgotten.