Cross River T. pustulatus?

[Jupp]

Hallo ,
I think the point to distinguish T. pustulatus between T.lineatus is the greater frequency of red points on blue-grey coloured back - without any stripes - of T. pustulatus.
KÖLLE alaaf !!!

[Corvus]

Hallo ,
I think the point to distinguish T. pustulatus between T.lineatus is the greater frequency of red points on blue-grey coloured back - without any stripes - of T. pustulatus.
KÖLLE alaaf !!!

Did you read the first descriptions or preferably have access to see the holotypes of T. pustulatus to verify?

[Jupp]

Sorry ,I haven´t got the first description resp. seen the holotype , but I distiguished the relation standard length to caudal fin:
T. lineatus ( 1:3 ) to T.pustulatus ( 1: 4 ) I can´t see any difference to each other.
KÖLLE alaaf !!!

[Corvus]

Okay. Probably seeing the holotype of T. pustulatus could confirm if they have no stripes.
Without really seeing the holotypes and other material one could argue that pustulatus are "just" a regional variation of fahakas and older ones get the lines, too.

What do you think about these?
http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vie ... tus#p71493

and here's the corresponding thread:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... 15&page=13

[Jupp]

Hallo , Corvus ,
I know these photos and i know the discussion.
I believe the smaller one is a T. pustulatus because he 1.has no stripes and 2. the frequency of the cherryred points is alot.
KÖLLE alaaf !!!

[iplaydrums1]

a puffer worht every penny



with bugs all over him.

[Martin Hi.]

hi marco,

Those pustuhakas are a good example for puffers with apparently unclear identification. In my opinion the holotypes (original specimens linked to the name) and first descriptions should be revisited to clarify the possible differences. The discussion so far is more like guessing and stating opinions.

The two french ichthyologists Lévêque and Paugy (these two scientists have probably seen more specimens than all of us together) suggested in 2003 to tell the two species appart (among other characters) by the relation of the length of their caudal fin to their standard length (total minus caudal).

lineatus should have: standard length = lenght of its caudal times 3, pustulatus times 4.

They wrote both can have red spots especially when young and lines when older.

as i can see on my few pictures of pustulatus this would not mean that pustulatus have a longer caudal fin. but the total length of pustulatus is a lot bigger than that of lineatus so that the relation, as you say, counts. pustulatus looks a lot more like a mbu in the body shape but has a similar coloration like lineatus.
do you have a copy of those léveque and paugy- texts? i would like to show it to a friend of mine who is interested in this species and tries to get them for years now, always ending up in stores selling pointed lineatus...
martin

[Corvus]

Yes, if these two ichthyologists are right, the caudal of pustulatus is relatively shorter than the one of lineatus. It would work like: measure the fish without caudal fin = a; measure the caudal fin = b. Calculate a/b, If the result is close to 3 due to a relatively big caudal fin => lineatus; result close to 4 => pustulatus. If it works...

I do have a problem with differentiating them by coloration just saying fahaka= spotted, lineatus=lines. Those red spotted ones that occured in trade (perfect pustulatus coloration) ended up with lines. Compare this thread: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... 15&page=13
@JUPP the smaller one you IDd as pustulatus also developed lines and the larger one had spots when he was smaller.

In addition, spotted and striped fish from Mamfe (type locality) are seen by many hobbyists as lineatus (IDs by ichthyologists as pustulatus in aqualog page 41 upper two pictures, also see very similar ones at http://www.fishbase.org/Photos/Thumbnai ... hp?ID=5142). Two closely related fish hard to differentiate in the same part of this river... I don't know...

I can only see two probable options:
1: All the reddish fish from Mamfe are pustulatus, the adults have lines. Differentiation is possible by morphometrics rather than coloration.

2: pustulatus is a regional variation of lineatus.

The work by Lévêque and Paugy can be seen in English (original French) as part of fishbase at:
http://www.fishbase.org/keys/descriptio ... ycode=1511
Press "Open key".

[manutius]

I agree that the body shape does seem to be different and in the fishbase pustulatus picture the angle of the nose to mouth seems to be totally different to a fahak from what I know. However one photo isn't enough to go on really, but I do find this stuff fascinating even if I don't fully understand it all