I just had a thought on why flowerhorn males kok shrinks during breeding. This applies to many ca cichlids but I'm posting this in the hybrid section in response to a thread I read on here that asked the question why does this happen.
So I was watching my big kokster midas pair who just had babies, the 12 inch male had a kok that shrank about half (was about 7 in tall now its about two) and I had this thought.
You'll of course know if you have ever seen a large community of midas or anything, that the top twenty five percent or so of large dominant fish have corresponding kok sizes based on their dominant position in their society. Of course, fish gain or loose the dominant position showed by kok and colour by fighting with eachother. Ergo, the fish with the biggest kok and colour corresponding to the biggest tribe in the area would constantly be challenged to fights by the smaller fish wanting to up their position in the society.
Thus, if a dominant fish wants to have babies, it would not be advantageous to the dominant fish to keep showing off in an outward way their position as this would just be inviting challenges to their position by smaller fish.
So this is why I think flowerhorn kok shrinks during breeding. Of courss tthe monkey face and kok gene when not attributed to vieja comes from midas, xcept for other hapes like lyonsi which is usually xpressed ime by lyonsi. I habe not bred vieja or lyonsi though I would assume that it works in a similar way, as the nuchal hump in cichlids pretty much means the same thing across species.
I would be interested to know however how this works after having babies. Does the kok grow back if they do not intend to spawn again or do they have to fight for their place in society all over again for it to grow back? Anyone who has a massive cichlid tank would b able to see this. Lol but it would have to be enormous.
So I was watching my big kokster midas pair who just had babies, the 12 inch male had a kok that shrank about half (was about 7 in tall now its about two) and I had this thought.
You'll of course know if you have ever seen a large community of midas or anything, that the top twenty five percent or so of large dominant fish have corresponding kok sizes based on their dominant position in their society. Of course, fish gain or loose the dominant position showed by kok and colour by fighting with eachother. Ergo, the fish with the biggest kok and colour corresponding to the biggest tribe in the area would constantly be challenged to fights by the smaller fish wanting to up their position in the society.
Thus, if a dominant fish wants to have babies, it would not be advantageous to the dominant fish to keep showing off in an outward way their position as this would just be inviting challenges to their position by smaller fish.
So this is why I think flowerhorn kok shrinks during breeding. Of courss tthe monkey face and kok gene when not attributed to vieja comes from midas, xcept for other hapes like lyonsi which is usually xpressed ime by lyonsi. I habe not bred vieja or lyonsi though I would assume that it works in a similar way, as the nuchal hump in cichlids pretty much means the same thing across species.
I would be interested to know however how this works after having babies. Does the kok grow back if they do not intend to spawn again or do they have to fight for their place in society all over again for it to grow back? Anyone who has a massive cichlid tank would b able to see this. Lol but it would have to be enormous.
