General BN colour question

Write im a little confused. over the last few months i have aquired several common BN from diffent sources yo get a good mix of blood. the only thing is there is a distinct diffence in colouration.

First i got a load of fry and brought them on. from these i have about six i have kept. and they seem to be the most common to most picktures i see. they are common brown with light brown spots all over with tipped tails.

second i bought a lone BN from LFS but when i got him home i saw a big diff in colour hes has exacly the same pattern but is so much brighter in colour and distinction of the spots they stand out rather than blending in.

fininly i bought a breeding group of three young adults. these are differnt again . they are very dark in colour spots virtuly not visable. and they have a blue tinge to the fins and tail. The male has lightend of a bit but still has the blue tinge

The common Bristlenose is a real pain when it comes to describing a species. In biology there are several different rules as to what makes a species. The general rule is that if they can mate an produce fertile young then they are the same species. However, this does run into issues. For example, we all know that a german shepherd dog and a Labrador are both dogs of the same species as they can freely breed. But what about a Great Dane and a Chiwawa (However you spell thos yappy little things). technically they are the same species but think of the poor little yapper, not physically possible.

Then we come to the bristlenose issue. The common bristlenose comes from such a wide geographic range that you start to get variation in its looks and body. If you started at one end of the population and slowly worked you way to the other you would notice a gradual change in colour, fin size, body size etc but small enough that you wouldn't think twice about it. But, it you put one from one end of the population next to one from the opposite end then WOW, two different looking fish! One may have a blue tinge while the other is more yellow.

Now, consider that the amazon is not a 2 dimentional setup, the amazon is huge, with more water flowing through it than the next top 4 rivers of the world combined!! there are hundreds of different directions you can go chasing bristlenose and suddenly you realise that what we thought of a the common bristlenose actually comes in many shapes, sizes and colours. but they are all bristlenose. Thats why we can get different colours. The common bristlenose comes in black, brown, albino, red, yellow and bluish.

just another reason to love them if you ask me!

If you look in my bn breeding topic, You will see my male is much lighter in colour than the fembot..
I agree Doug, all the more reason to love them...

Doug has many, many wrinkles on his brain!

That seems to be a common trait with people named Doug.

Its my name also so i'm a little biased.

Bwompus wrote:

Doug has many, many wrinkles on his brain!

That seems to be a common trait with people named Doug.

Its my name also so i'm a little biased.

i have 4 different blood lines of albino longfin 3 lots are a golden yellow and the 4th is white from what ive been told the golden yellow is a better fish as the white is to inbreeding or lack of breeding with different blood lines pls correct me if im wrong DOUG as im new to bn breeding

Hrmmm tough one. The white ones dont seem to be as a result of the inbreeding. In a spawn of two totally unrealted albino bristlenose you can end up with one or two of the white ones. I can see why people think that though as the white ones are weak and most often die off. if you have a mature one it is quite rare. They are not as common as normal albinos so its kind of cool to have one.

hmm seems weird as i bought 3 white and they all doing well guess if there still alive in 6mths ill find out if if its a coulour strain or a weak fish ill breed them with the gold i found a web site and there was two strains gold and white wish i could remember the site but i cant read chinese lol

There is a post HERE about the white variation and peoples experiences with it.