Thanks for such an informative post. Not to knit pick, but because it is informative and definitely believabke it can mislead some less knowledgeable people, some of the max sizes that we know of are off, some slightly and other by I don't know how much. One slightly off is teugelsi, Dr. b last reported his wc one at 28" from toyin. And then ansorgii, congi, and pbb, I don't think we've seen any over three feet proven. Or maybe I'm just ignorant and haven't seen it.
What does it mean that delhezi is between uj and lj? Doesn't make sense to me.. their upper jaw protrudes out in all the specimens I've seen which would be what classifies them correct?
No worries, but I don't see how it can mislead anyone? The video was based of the charts which were made last year. I wasn't aware of the
P. teugelsi reaching 28", but I expect it will get bigger than that still.
The fun bit about this is the information is always changing.
There's another mtDNA study ongoing at the moment which may be reclassifying
P. bichir lapradei from Eastern Nigeria as
P. bichir bichir also. If that happens, the differentiating by finlet counting will become more awkward as they have less finlets that a normal
P. bichir bichir.
P. ansorgii were only thought to max at 10 inch at one point, that number has been climbing since. The
P. ansorgii, P. congicus and
P. bichir bichir sizes were reported from Kamihata and a Japanese retailer, I think Big-In? Might be pictures floating about in their archives, although none I've seen yet.
Towards the end of the video was JZX's Ansorgii, that was around 3ft, give or take an inch or two and estimated 7-10 years. That specimen had quite pale markings, there are some that size about which have retained them.
Personally I think the sizes on the video for many of them are small if any, but it's a case of the waiting game to find out if or how small.
In regards to the
P. delhezi, they are a transitional species between Upper and Lower Jaws, which means their mtDNA is close to both species in UJ and LJ, whereas typically species UJ and LJ mtDNA isn't as close. It doesn't have to do with their jaw protrusion.
It should be the journal I cited that will explain more on it
if it's not, it will be the closed access one which also covers the mtDNA of
P. polli. You can request by emailing D. Suzuki.
I'm waiting for the next study to finish before I update the factfiles, but the meantime I'll update any changes to size, location etc. in the thread and video annotations.
I hope this clarifies Moe
If you or anyone come across some large specimens, post some pics here!
