Identification of genus in the Cat-e-log

Waldo · Post by **Waldo** » 19 Sep 2006, 23:07

I thought it would be cool to educate those people about catfish are identified. Ie, what makes a peckoltia a peckoltia, an ancistrus an ancistrus, a panaque ... you get the point.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 20 Sep 2006, 11:49

Am I right in thinking that you'd like to have a "genus identification"? So that, just like we have an entry for every species with "identification", we'd have a common entry for the genus were (when possible) it can be written down how you'd identify a Peckoltia that genus, rather than some other genus? I think this is a nice idea [although in some cases it's hard to give a short and specific description, but I guess that's just something we have to live with].

If that's not what you wanted, please explain in more detail what you want.

I'm not able to influence what goes into the Cat-eLog, and I have don't really know what is easy and hard for Jools to do, but to the best of my understanding, the above suggestion wouldn't be VERY hard to implement.

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Mats

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 20 Sep 2006, 13:22

MatsP wrote: I have don't really know what is easy and hard for Jools to do, but to the best of my understanding, the above suggestion wouldn't be VERY hard to implement.

I think that it is a very difficult job, which will absorb a lot of time. The question is: is it worth the amount of work and accuracy that has to be put into it?

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 20 Sep 2006, 13:41

Marc van Arc wrote:
MatsP wrote: I have don't really know what is easy and hard for Jools to do, but to the best of my understanding, the above suggestion wouldn't be VERY hard to implement.
I think that it is a very difficult job, which will absorb a lot of time. The question is: is it worth the amount of work and accuracy that has to be put into it?

The amount of work to update the Cat-eLog to add the differentiation is indeed significant. The work to update the data-base to have a field where thsi information can be filled in would (in my estimate) be not so much of a task. As with all Cat-eLog information, if there is a field for it, and it's not filled in, it's no big deal, but I would be happy to fill in some information if there was a field to fill in - even if the information is only available for SOME genera, it's better than not having any, right?

In the end, of course, it's Jools that decides what goes into Planet Catfish, not me...

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Mats

Waldo · Post by **Waldo** » 20 Sep 2006, 16:55

Yes MattP, I'd like just a breaf description of the genus. I see a lot of people saying that it's this fish becuase it's blue. Generally speaking for those that do research and planet catfish being #1 for any search engine when looking for a certain cat; Here would be the ideal place for ALL cat information. It would be a great way for a person to find out what there fish is knowing nothing but being able to examine and compair.
If I'm correct I don't think the Cat-e-log will ever be finished, there are always corrections being made in the scientific world and more information on certain unresearched fish.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 20 Nov 2006, 21:39

This is either what Silurus was suggesting in http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9403 OR it's "just" a data submission issue. Either way, I'm going to move this topic into resolved as there isn't a great deal I can do about it in the short term (and I'm having a bit of a clear out).

Jools

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 21 Nov 2006, 11:56

I didn't quite understand it that way.

I understood it that there would be a "identification entry" for the Genus as well as the species. Similar the the ethymology entry.

That way, any genus-wide identification has it's own place.

Once the field is there, it's a case of data entry, of course.

Dichotomus keys as per Silurus suggestion would indeed be a good idea, but the work to do that is slightly more, because you need a reasonably complete set or the dichotomus keys won't work... With the entries per genus, one genus can be covered without actually needing any other genus to be included, so it's easier to add individual data entries, rather than gather up a rather large amount of data for many genus...

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Mats

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 11 Apr 2007, 14:38

ATTENTION ALL DATA SUBMITTERS!

I have now added this new field (called genus identification) to the data submission, vetting and cat-elog pages. If you now enter something regarding ID in the new field it will, once vetted, appear on all data sheets for that genus.

Jools

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 11 Apr 2007, 15:04

I've filled in Ancistrus and Pterogoplichthys for you to have something to "test with".

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Mats

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 11 Apr 2007, 15:11

I have accepted these. As these are now shown across all members of that genus, you may also need to remove duplicate or similar text from other congeners...

Jools

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 11 Apr 2007, 15:17

Jools wrote:As these are now shown across all members of that genus, you may also need to remove duplicate or similar text from other congeners...

Yes, I will try to reduce duplication as I go round looking at different genera/species. But that's more work than five minutes...

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Mats

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 11 Apr 2007, 17:29

Can I make a suggestion:
Would it be possible to more clearly separate the genus/species identification parts in the data-sheet for the species? If you look at it's hard to tell which is the species part and which is the genus part of the "identification".

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Mats

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 11 Apr 2007, 17:36

They're designed to run together like that, from someone who is reading that entry's point of view, it reads clearly to me (albeit the use of "Fish is" is somewhat clumsy). Happy to discuss more, but I think this is a bit more down to the style of the data there than its representation.

Jools

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 11 Apr 2007, 17:45

I guess it's a matter of "how you look at it". I was trying to determine which part of it was actually genera and which was the specific part to see if I needed to remove something there.

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Mats

Post by **Shane** » 12 Apr 2007, 19:04

Both sexes have "hooks" under the gill-cover which are extended (everted) for defence (this is shared with several other Ancistrini-group genera). Mature males and sometimes females have soft tentacles on the snout - this is unique for Ancistrus genus.

Is this the "genus identification?" Are we shooting for a scientific description or a layman's description? The definition I have is,

"The body is broad and depressed, approximately 5 to 6 times as long as deep. The depressed head is about as broad as long or a little bit longer than broad and usually twice as deep. The broad snout has a bare border (without plates), narrow in the female and broader in the male, and may be provided with a variable number of cutaneous tentacles, small in some females and quite large and bufurcate in some males. the head is without crests. The eye is variable , contained from 5 to 10 times in the head length depending upon the spp. The articulation of the interopercle and opercle is movable, the interopercle possessing from 8-16 spines (sometimes with hooked tips) that can be everted. The mandibular ramusis contained 2.0 to 3.5 times in the interorbital width; the teeth are small, numerous, and bifid. The scutes are spinulose but not carinate. There are 23-26 scutes in a lateral series, 5 to 7 between the dorsal and adipose fins, and 10-13 between the anal and caudal fins. The supraoccipital is bordered posteriorly by 1 or 2 median scutes and one on each side. The lower surfaces of the head and abdomen are naked. The dorsal fin has a spine and 7-9 rays. the anal fin has a spine and 3 or 4 rays. The pectoral fin spine is relatively short, usually barely reaching the origin of the ventral fins. the caudal is obliquely truncate."

To answer Waldo's question, "What makes an Ancistrus an Ancistrus" the above is the answer. Tentacles alone do not make Ancistrus unique and a catfish with tentacles that had 10 soft rays in the dorsal would not qualify as an Ancistrus without taxonomists revising what it means to be an Ancistrus.

-Shane

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 13 Apr 2007, 10:39

I was aiming to match the species identification, which aside from some rare cases, is in "laymans description".

In my opinion, the Cat-eLog isn't a scientific database (in a strict sense, fishbase has that role, and I think we don't really aim to take over that role).

I have no problem with updating it to your version (and attempting to keep that sort of level in future) if Jools and/or others say that's what we should have - but it's not what I understood that Waldo was after, nor what I believe most users of the Cat-eLog is after.

Also, assuming we keep the current "style", if you think that the wording in laymans terms is incorrect/misleading or need improving in some other way, then please feel free to inform me, either here or in the Cat-eLog itself. A good example is the dorsal ray count.

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Mats

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 14 Apr 2007, 09:26

Broadly speaking, a laymans description is required, however there are times when you do need to get right down into technical detail to describe this accurately.

However, the point about <em>Ancistrus</em> to use the example given, is that no other species has head tentacles and this should be offered first and is probably all that's required. Also in the example given, I don't really see the point in mentioning the cheek spines as so many others have this. We might however need to mention bushy fleshy growths as opposed to tentacles - the Germans, for example, use the word antennae rather than tentacles...

The other problem with general scientific descriptions like the one Shane quotes is that there's often exceptions - for example <em>Ancistrus ranunculus</em> doesn't sit quite right in there. The more you write, the more can be made inaccurate by change, so brevity is key here.

BUT, this isn't a global rule. With some genera, you need to get pretty technical - if there is a rule of thumb, the more common a species is, the better it is to have a layman's descriptions as more folks will get more information they can use. Conversely, the more obscure a genus (or species), the more detail can be added. Those looking up odd fish tend to be better equipped to absorb technical information.

Jools