HELP! Puffer identification

[Corvus]

No need to apologize, I probably just did not get what you meant (I'm not a native speaker as you may have noticed).

I would not buy these scientific papers sold online, the prices are ridiculously high like 40$ for 10 pages. Libraries can typically order/loan books from other libraries for a small fee (here it is mostly 1,50 Euros) and you can xerox them. This is called "inter-library loan". I do not know if your library can do that for a decent price or if you need a larger one. All university libraries around the world should be able to offer this service. The references themselves (which book, year, pages etc.) can be found at fishbase and in the references of other papers. It's really too bad these scientific papers are mostly copyrighted and most cannot simply be posted so they are available to everyone.

With regard to the topic of this thread the text by Hamilton-Buchanan is important. Citing from Hamilton-Buchanan, who was the first to describe C. patoca and giving it its name:

"...the colour of the patoca above is blackish with numerous large and yellow spots on the back, below it is white..." (sounds like the ones of this thread)

H.-B. he also compares his patoca to the species kappa:

"...kappa has also a considerable affinity to the patoca, but is less prominent on the belly and more so between the eyes, while the spots on the back are pale blue its belly yellow..." (fits perfectly to those called C. patoca nowerdays, doesn't it? Even the different faces of the white and yellow spotted ones and the sometimes yellow belly)

Later scientists thought kappa was just a synonym of patoca without studying them in detail and explaining the differences in color and morphology. I believe that was mistake. Even later Chelonodon with white to blue spots and with dark bars were described by Smith as C. laticeps. Obviously this scientist was not aware that there was a species kappa described long ago with very good resemblance. And there is also dissutidens another one described with white to blue spots instead of yellow... might be a synonym to kappa instead of patoca.

You see how complicated the genus Chelonodon is. I believe future research is needed to clarify how many species there actually are and how they are named properly. Until then I think it is best to use open nomenclature. Chelonodon cf. patoca means this is a Chelonodon comparable (cf.=confer (latin) = compare!) to C. patoca, but with not perfectly certain ID. Not very satisfying, but the best I can think of at this point.

[Umbrella]

No need to apologize, I probably just did not get what you meant (I'm not a native speaker as you may have noticed).

I would not buy these scientific papers sold online, the prices are ridiculously high like 40$ for 10 pages. Libraries can typically order/loan books from other libraries for a small fee (here it is mostly 1,50 Euros) and you can xerox them. This is called "inter-library loan". I do not know if your library can do that for a decent price or if you need a larger one. All university libraries around the world should be able to offer this service. The references themselves (which book, year, pages etc.) can be found at fishbase and in the references of other papers. It's really too bad these scientific papers are mostly copyrighted and most cannot simply be posted so they are available to everyone.

With regard to the topic of this thread the text by Hamilton-Buchanan is important. Citing from Hamilton-Buchanan, who was the first to describe C. patoca and giving it its name:

"...the colour of the patoca above is blackish with numerous large and yellow spots on the back, below it is white..." (sounds like the ones of this thread)

H.-B. he also compares his patoca to the species kappa:

"...kappa has also a considerable affinity to the patoca, but is less prominent on the belly and more so between the eyes, while the spots on the back are pale blue its belly yellow..." (fits perfectly to those called C. patoca nowerdays, doesn't it? Even the different faces of the white and yellow spotted ones and the sometimes yellow belly)

Later scientists thought kappa was just a synonym of patoca without studying them in detail and explaining the differences in color and morphology. I believe that was mistake. Even later Chelonodon with white to blue spots and with dark bars were described by Smith as C. laticeps. Obviously this scientist was not aware that there was a species kappa described long ago with very good resemblance. And there is also dissutidens another one described with white to blue spots instead of yellow... might be a synonym to kappa instead of patoca.

You see how complicated the genus Chelonodon is. I believe future research is needed to clarify how many species there actually are and how they are named properly. Until then I think it is best to use open nomenclature. Chelonodon cf. patoca means this is a Chelonodon comparable (cf.=confer (latin) = compare!) to C. patoca, but with not perfectly certain ID. Not very satisfying, but the best I can think of at this point.

See ? You never cease to amaze me! Thanks for all of this info. It should keep me busy for a few days. And yea, I had no idea the Kappa description existed either... but now you got me interested Quite complicated indeed.

[IkeepPuffers]

Hey Corvus i did a little research and these pics of C.Patoca came up. This is confusing, can u help me identify which one is the real C. Patoca? The third one resembles the puffer that i own while the other two are nowhere near. Also, some research papers which i found stated that C.Patoca is either marine or FW. The ones which said that it is marine are referring to the puffer in the 2nd pic while the oens which said that they are FW fish which can occasionally be found in brackish waters are referring to the puffer in the third pic.




I also did a little search on youtube and this vid came up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEXi9gnTK-o. The puffers in this vid are exactly like mine.

[bazil323]

Ahem, as far as interbreeding, it may be possible. I'm no fish expert, but if dogs and wolves (two species) can interbreed and zebras and horses (two species) can interbreed, why not two species of puffers?

I don't know the genetics of puffers, but if two species have a similar structure and the same amount of chromosomes, etc, it is possible to interbreed.

[Corvus]

Ahem, as far as interbreeding, it may be possible. I'm no fish expert, but if dogs and wolves (two species) can interbreed and zebras and horses (two species) can interbreed, why not two species of puffers?

horses and zebras just as dogs and wolves do not occur together in nature in larger numbers. If they would, the populations would mix (because they are physically and genetically able to mix), they would have one genetic pool and be one species. Natural hybrids only occur in cases where two species can mix and when there are just slightly overlapping distribution. Larger overlapping like for Chelonodon and it would be just one population/species. Therefore you can stronly assume that Chelonodon spp. cannot interbreed.

[Corvus]

Hey Corvus i did a little research and these pics of C.Patoca came up. This is confusing, can u help me identify which one is the real C. Patoca?

The third one is most close to the original description.
It has yellow spots and appears to be less prominent between the eyes compared to number two.
But as noted above at this point the systematics and taxonomy of the Chelonodon spp. is quite unclear.

What appears to be clear empirically is that they need high end brackish to marine water in order to survive captivity.