Advertisements
Aquatic Avenue Banner Tropica Shop Banner Fishy Business Banner
Results 1 to 17 of 17

Thread: Back to the old days

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Bukit Batok
    Posts
    8,790
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    9
    Country
    Singapore

    Back to the old days

    Advertisements
    Fresh n Marine aQuarium Banner

    Advertise here

    Advertise here
    You fellas might be thinking what the thread title is about and here's the explanation.

    I went visiting to my grandma's place and ended up going "fishing" for some wild feral guppies in the streams nearby with my younger cousins. Boy did we have alot of fun. We caught quite a number of large specimens, both males and females and some of the females had alot of colour in their tails!

    Of course I was kinda shocked but the males were just as stunning.

    Anyway here's the images for today's Tiddler Fest.


    The males.. cute aren't they?


    The females.. look closely at the right hand side of the tub, there's one female with a very colourful tail.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Tampines, Singapore.
    Posts
    7,920
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    7
    Country
    Singapore
    yeah miss my guppy scooping days too. seems the longkang guppies in Singapore has become much less common and not as colourful these days.
    why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
    hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Bukit Batok
    Posts
    8,790
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    9
    Country
    Singapore
    Choy, you'd be surprised. I found some REALLY colourful ones today. Even some of the females had some colour.

    Some of the males were lyretails and some had top swords. I found at least one male that had a bottom sword.

    According to my cousin, when it rains there'll be a whole lot more as they're washed out of the drainage system from a pond or source higher up on the hillside.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Tampines, Singapore.
    Posts
    7,920
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    7
    Country
    Singapore
    oh you mean you caught them here in Singapore? I thought you went up north to visit your relatives.
    why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
    hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Bukit Batok
    Posts
    8,790
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    9
    Country
    Singapore
    Nah not in Malaysia. My grandma lives in Singapore. The relatives up north in Melaka are my grandpa's relatives.

    I have always thought of the guppies found in SG to be rather drab but these critters I caught today were surprisingly different from those I caught many years ago.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Tampines, Singapore.
    Posts
    7,920
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    7
    Country
    Singapore
    the ones I caught as a boy are like these. from a pond near the Natioinal Stadium (just completed but not yet open) and also from the small longkang in front of Orchard Towers.
    why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
    hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Bukit Batok
    Posts
    8,790
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    9
    Country
    Singapore
    Orchard Towers got longkang?!

    If I could catch these in the Orchard area I'd be really surprised.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Tampines, Singapore.
    Posts
    7,920
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    7
    Country
    Singapore
    Quote Originally Posted by stormhawk
    Orchard Towers got longkang?!

    If I could catch these in the Orchard area I'd be really surprised.
    I mean when I was a boy lah. at that time of course no orchard tower, just longkang by the roadside (fast flowing water probably from cairnhill or something), a bus stop, and a row of shop house, one of them selling Noritake jap porcelain


    and who knows, ever since they covered up all the longkang and turn them into pedestrian walkway, I mean what do you think is below your feet as you walk in front of taka and wisma maybe those longkang guppies evolving into blind cave guppies?
    why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
    hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Duck pond
    Posts
    2,654
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    84
    Country
    Singapore
    Wild guppies show amazing variation in the males. I remember catching swordtails (both lower and upper), lyretails, spear-tails etc... in the longkang adjourning my old home in Johor. There was even one xanthic male which I spent days trying to catch. I wonder how far feral guppies have diverged from the original stock in Trinidad – apart from different environmental and predatory pressures, sexual selection is probably a key factor in the range of colours and finnage expressed by males.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Bukit Batok
    Posts
    8,790
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    9
    Country
    Singapore
    Budak, there were several xanthic males that I found. Among the young there were a few of them that were xanthic. I believe they must have come into contact with the aquarium-bred fancy strains.

    If I ever come across a pintail (speartail) in the drain, I'll bring it back and do intensive line breeding.

    They are by far the hardest to find in the drains. I've only found one pintail male and that was about 10 years ago.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Tampines, Singapore.
    Posts
    7,920
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    7
    Country
    Singapore
    since guppies are only line bred and not hybridised, all these genes that expresses the various kinds of tails would still be there in the original wild gene pool in Trinidad.
    why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
    hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    East-central California
    Posts
    926
    Feedback Score
    0
    Guppies hybridize easily with many other Poecelids. Endler's livebearers are just a starting point, but I have seen many wild crosses. Perhaps the most unusual was a helleri cross that was way bigger than any normal guppy, and had the yellow-orange coloring and swordtail. IDK if they were fertile.

    It was my understanding that the original genes in the guppy are so fragile that they have frequent mutations. That is where the flowing tails and other impossible (to wild fish) traits arise. I selectively bred a line of lyretails for several years, and was frustrated by my inability to keep mutations from altering the nearly perfect design I was striving for. Just my US$0.02.

    Wright
    01 760 872-3995
    805 Valley West Circle
    Bishop, CA 93514 USA

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Tampines, Singapore.
    Posts
    7,920
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    7
    Country
    Singapore
    Quote Originally Posted by whuntley
    It was my understanding that the original genes in the guppy are so fragile that they have frequent mutations.
    Wright
    mmm… you ever heard the BBC radio play The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy ?
    why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
    hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    East-central California
    Posts
    926
    Feedback Score
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by hwchoy
    mmm… you ever heard the BBC radio play The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy ?
    Naah. I live in the world's deepest valley. Radio only gets here at night, sort of. The local stations are so into country western I feel like I have just stepped in something, every time I tune them in.

    Some day, when I get rich, I'll subscribe to a satellite service. Probably still will find little of interest on BBC, though.

    Wright
    01 760 872-3995
    805 Valley West Circle
    Bishop, CA 93514 USA

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Tampines, Singapore.
    Posts
    7,920
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    7
    Country
    Singapore
    aww that's too bad. you wouldn't realise what you just said then.

    anyway these days just listen over the Internet.
    why I don't do garden hybrids and aquarium strains: natural species is a history of Nature, while hybrids are just the whims of Man.
    hexazona · crumenatum · Galleria Botanica

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Bukit Batok
    Posts
    8,790
    Feedback Score
    0
    Images
    9
    Country
    Singapore
    Wright, I just bought some nice young lyretail males from the petshop. Apparently they express all sorts of colouration but the gene for the lyretail is fixed.

    The wild ones that I caught had all sorts of patterns, some of which I've not seen in previous populations of guppies that I fished out of the drains. Apparently they must have come into contact with the fancy strains and that would explain why some of the females and males have some cobra and snakeskin patterns plus some with delta tails.
    Fish.. Simply Irresistable
    Back to Killies... slowly.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Cape Town, South Africa
    Posts
    887
    Feedback Score
    0
    It was my understanding that the original genes in the guppy are so fragile that they have frequent mutations.
    You are right and wrong (but aren't we all). Let me explain... using human immune globulin genes. A section of the gene, called the hyper variable region (HVR), is able to mutate relatively freely to the rest of the gene (for some odd reason). It is this HVR that recognises bacterial, viral, fungal, pollen etc... proteins and trigger an immune response, but that is beside the point. My my, am I digressing alot today, but back the point.

    Certain elements of an organism's DNA are free to mutate and generate more variablity between generations (on the case of human HVR, during one's lifetime). In Guppies, it so happens that it is the genes controling colour and tail shape. This most likely an evolutionary response to intense natural selection in response to predators in a large variation of habitats where different tail shapes and colours would have an advantage.

    Because guppies seem to get around (getting flooded down canals), it is important that there be constant variation from one generation to another, even though Natural Selection tends to select for fittest phenotypes, and so excluding unsucessful variants. The evolutionary trick: evolve strategic DNA sequences that can mutate freely!

    At least this is my crack-pot reasoning... Still need to think of a test to test this mad hypothesis.

    Those guppiess look really nice. Wish I was fishing in a canal in Singapore!

    tt4n

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •