The best way to settle this would be to track down the country of origin. Once these fish hit 10-12 inches they start to look very, very similar. The one thing I have noticed for sure is that Barras are more elongated and nile have a taller profile. Barras also differ dramatically within their species depending on where they are from(India, Oz, Indonesia etc.)or if the are captive raised for market. A couple years ago the Barras where the ones that you couldn't find in the pet trade and Niles where easy to get once or twice per year. I got one from Ted Reynolds 2-3 years ago and Wes still has that same fish in his shop, it's the biggest Lates he has.
Difference Between a Nile Perch ( L.Niloticus ) and Barramundi ( L.Calcarifer)
- Thread starter blt70
- Start date
Yeah, I saw your old Nile the other day at Wes's shop. He has a couple of Barra in the same tank and it is night and day difference between the two. Wes, post some pics please!
IMO niloticus and calcarifer look nothing alike, I dont how people confuse the two. Dont listen to those guys they think they have some knowledge of Lates sp. but they do not.
Crap, that sounds so stoopid.
Wes moved them all to his house, no more beautiful perch to look at when in store now.....
Maybe it is a barrimundi. If so I am going to be pi**** of* at the store that sold it to me. I paid a lot more for it than the price of the barrimundis currently being sold.
I have the following comments regarding what I have found so far:
When the fish was young it did sometimes get a light yellow stripe down the center of the head, usually when feeding. I believe you that you can tell your two fish apart, but I question how diagnostic the stripe can be. It is even found in Nandus species.
Last night I looked at a young L. calcarifer owned by an acquaintance. It looked nearly identical to mine, although it may have had a shallower caudal fin, and shorter caudal peduncle. If different at all, it appeared slightly more stocky. This is consistent with the email I just received from the curator of the former Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit, who has also kept both species at once. He says that L. niloticus is more elongate than L. calcarifer. I just sent him the picture so it will be interesting to see what he says. This directly contradicts what someone said above about the barrimundi being more elongate. Which one is correct?
I have searched scientific literature and cannot find anything that can definitively differentiate between the two species. Most of the species accounts have been published in papers like FAO books that are designed to aid in identifying fish from a single geographic region. Therefore these are very unlikely to provide a level of detail sufficient to distinguish between a Lates from Africa and one from Asia. I tried to read Bloch's 1790 species description of L. calcarifer in the hope that it would contain characters that would differentiate it from the earlier (1758) described L. niloticus, but it is a four volume set written in German and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I also looked over Otero's 53 page 2004 revision of Lates, but it mostly described osteological characters, so it wasn't much help for identifying live fish.
I still plan to examine the preserved specimens in the Museum collection soon so that I can come up with some definitive distinguishing morphological characters. We have many specimens of both species on hand so it shouldn't be a problem. I just have to find them in the collection.
Of course there still may be a problem ID'ing Lates aquarium specimens derived from Lake Victoria, as Tijs Goldschmidt reported hybridization between L. niloticus and another Lates after the introduction of the former into the Lake.
I have the following comments regarding what I have found so far:
When the fish was young it did sometimes get a light yellow stripe down the center of the head, usually when feeding. I believe you that you can tell your two fish apart, but I question how diagnostic the stripe can be. It is even found in Nandus species.
Last night I looked at a young L. calcarifer owned by an acquaintance. It looked nearly identical to mine, although it may have had a shallower caudal fin, and shorter caudal peduncle. If different at all, it appeared slightly more stocky. This is consistent with the email I just received from the curator of the former Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit, who has also kept both species at once. He says that L. niloticus is more elongate than L. calcarifer. I just sent him the picture so it will be interesting to see what he says. This directly contradicts what someone said above about the barrimundi being more elongate. Which one is correct?
I have searched scientific literature and cannot find anything that can definitively differentiate between the two species. Most of the species accounts have been published in papers like FAO books that are designed to aid in identifying fish from a single geographic region. Therefore these are very unlikely to provide a level of detail sufficient to distinguish between a Lates from Africa and one from Asia. I tried to read Bloch's 1790 species description of L. calcarifer in the hope that it would contain characters that would differentiate it from the earlier (1758) described L. niloticus, but it is a four volume set written in German and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I also looked over Otero's 53 page 2004 revision of Lates, but it mostly described osteological characters, so it wasn't much help for identifying live fish.
I still plan to examine the preserved specimens in the Museum collection soon so that I can come up with some definitive distinguishing morphological characters. We have many specimens of both species on hand so it shouldn't be a problem. I just have to find them in the collection.
Of course there still may be a problem ID'ing Lates aquarium specimens derived from Lake Victoria, as Tijs Goldschmidt reported hybridization between L. niloticus and another Lates after the introduction of the former into the Lake.
