Banner: Depicts Xiphophorus variatus pair from the lab. Male colorful in foreground, spotted female behind.
This article was originally written for “Livebearers”, the journal of the American Livebearers Association, issue #228, Autumn 2015.
For a livebearer enthusiast, living in Texas has its advantages. A short list of available activities includes catching wild Poecilia latipinna, Poecilia formosa, several Gambusia species as well as feral platys (maculatus & variatus-type), swordtails, guppies, shortfin mollies, Belonesox(!), and probably the rest of Central America's poecilids at this point. We also have the XGSC, Goliad Farms, and Dr. Gil Rosenthal's lab at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Dr. Rosenthal’s lab focuses on animal mating behaviors and their an influence on evolution. A quick evaluation of the lab makes it obvious the focus involves Xiphophorus fish.
Entering the lab, I was amazed first by the amount of space the lab encompasses, with a room for benchwork, a room for pickling (more on that later), and the room most interesting to our readers, the fish room. Entering the lab is a hallway where one can access each room. At the end of the hallway was a break area with coffee, comfortable seating, and a ~100 gallon planted tank with a familiar fish inside. A small Xiphophorine, about an inch long, with no remarkable color or other discerning features save for the typical black horizontal stripe and some individuals with a Moon-like tail spot pattern. "Xiphophorus... pygmaeus?" Total guess; I haven't actually seen X. pygmaeus before. "Malinche x birchmanni hybrids" he corrected me. Looking more closely, I noticed a tremendous amount of variation between the hybrids, including a very "bull" Birchmanni-like hybrid male, dead in the water with advanced melanoma around the caudal peduncle.
The fish room itself was packed full of a dozen or so species and hybrids in bare bottom tanks, with the obvious filter and a few practical additions. I tried to take a few iPhone photos of the fish, which I was very successful at. I tried to take a few decent iPhone photos of the fish, which I did not do so well on. I recall alvarezi, birchmanni, helleri, malinche, nezahualcoyotl, variatus, probably more I’m forgetting, and hybrids. After this, he showed me the pickling room, a room with bottles and tubes of dead fish in a tinted fluid. This is to preserve the animals in case they may be needed for future analysis. Capturing the dead hybrid from before, he held the fish in his hand for me to photograph, and placed the cadaver in an off-transparent fluid resting in an old tube. “Here… a souvenir.” he said as he placed the vial in my hands. I was thrilled.
For a livebearer enthusiast, living in Texas has its advantages. A short list of available activities includes catching wild Poecilia latipinna, Poecilia formosa, several Gambusia species as well as feral platys (maculatus & variatus-type), swordtails, guppies, shortfin mollies, Belonesox(!), and probably the rest of Central America's poecilids at this point. We also have the XGSC, Goliad Farms, and Dr. Gil Rosenthal's lab at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Dr. Rosenthal’s lab focuses on animal mating behaviors and their an influence on evolution. A quick evaluation of the lab makes it obvious the focus involves Xiphophorus fish.
Entering the lab, I was amazed first by the amount of space the lab encompasses, with a room for benchwork, a room for pickling (more on that later), and the room most interesting to our readers, the fish room. Entering the lab is a hallway where one can access each room. At the end of the hallway was a break area with coffee, comfortable seating, and a ~100 gallon planted tank with a familiar fish inside. A small Xiphophorine, about an inch long, with no remarkable color or other discerning features save for the typical black horizontal stripe and some individuals with a Moon-like tail spot pattern. "Xiphophorus... pygmaeus?" Total guess; I haven't actually seen X. pygmaeus before. "Malinche x birchmanni hybrids" he corrected me. Looking more closely, I noticed a tremendous amount of variation between the hybrids, including a very "bull" Birchmanni-like hybrid male, dead in the water with advanced melanoma around the caudal peduncle.
The fish room itself was packed full of a dozen or so species and hybrids in bare bottom tanks, with the obvious filter and a few practical additions. I tried to take a few iPhone photos of the fish, which I was very successful at. I tried to take a few decent iPhone photos of the fish, which I did not do so well on. I recall alvarezi, birchmanni, helleri, malinche, nezahualcoyotl, variatus, probably more I’m forgetting, and hybrids. After this, he showed me the pickling room, a room with bottles and tubes of dead fish in a tinted fluid. This is to preserve the animals in case they may be needed for future analysis. Capturing the dead hybrid from before, he held the fish in his hand for me to photograph, and placed the cadaver in an off-transparent fluid resting in an old tube. “Here… a souvenir.” he said as he placed the vial in my hands. I was thrilled.
At the end of the visit, I was surprised by my take-aways. I held a thick stack of scientific papers, a pickled fish, and a new perspective on the ALA. Organizations like the ALA help facilitate the creation of researchers like Dr. Rosenthal, which give back to the hobby. Last time I checked, most collections of wild livebearers floating around in the hobby today originate from researchers! It is 2015. It’s time to bring our club into the 21st century, and bring on the next generation of hobbyists and researchers.