Should hybrid or bred forms of Plecos be given l-numbers?

[NCE12940]

Sorry to go back to dogs again but that’s where my expertise lies –
Other than *accidents*, most cross breeding in dogs is done for a purpose – good or bad.
*Good* would be when some livestock guardian dog (LGD) owners have Anatolian X Pyr crosses but since both are LGDs they still have a purpose. And nobody’s trying to register them or breed them as a *new* breed.
*Bad* (to me) is the crossing for the pet market (*Cockapoos*, *Peekapoos*, and the like). And these are marketed as a breed. This is a scenario I see for the Plecos.
I do know of one *scientific* cross breeding (and the breeder was a scientist and not JUST a *dog lover*). Dalmatians have a unique health problem in that the liver is not efficient at processing uric acid, which can be deadly. The breeder in question very carefully crossed Dals with Pointers (similar in phenotype), did various back breedings, etc., and very carefully documented everything. The result was a purebred Dalmatian that had no uric acid problems. These dogs were admitted to the AKC Stud Book. (Something similar was once done with Bloodhounds, which suffer from gastric torsion. They were crossed with Foxhounds and eliminated this problem. However the Bloodhound people had screaming fits and these dogs were never successfully introduced to the gene pool.)
Does anybody see anyone in the future doing something similar to the Dalmatian X Pointer breeding with Plecos? And what would be the purpose?

[apistomaster]

Okay, so if it's just going to be a free-for-all, with breeders experimenting however they like to get all kinds of Hypancistrus colour patterns, then who cares what they are called?

I don't care, and I'm sure the 'average customer' that just wants a pretty fish doesn't either. The husbandry will be identical for all of them, so let them just make up crazy names to sell them. The serious hobbyist will simply just buy wild caught fishes, and ignore the captive bred stock.

I think this is just creating a problem where none exists ...

I have an idea.
Example: L260 X L333 = LH593
333+260=593

[Shane]

NCE,
Just to clarify, the examples you cite above are all "cross breeds" which are crosses of poplulations or man made breeds of the same species. In the case above Canis lupus aka the dog or wolf or dingo.
Hybrids are crosses between species. To make this thread analogous to dogs the example would be crossing Dalmatians with coyotes or jackels.
-Shane

[NCE12940]

Or asses x horses = mules? I believe the principle is still applicable however.

[Mol_PMB]

Imagine if we were to suddenly 'discover' dogs and start classifying them by D-numbers, like we do with catfish. Would a golden Labrador, a black one and a chocolate one get the same D-number? Probably not. When we started to allocate them to species, would colour or pattern variations be the basis of different classifications? This seems to be the case with some catfish species (including Corydoras).

With catfish, a population in a particular tributary evolves slightly different features from those in the adjacent tributary, partly by chance and partly to suit the local conditions. How does this compare to the difference between wolves and dingoes, or between Alsatians and Huskies?

I expect that using our approach for catfish, not all dogs would be classified Canis lupus.

In some other animals, the existence of small isolated populations is a problem with inbreeding and can threaten the long-term existence of the species/variety (pandas, gorillas, Manx cats)

I'm not a biological or genetics expert, so apologies for the layman's viewpoint.


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[P.C. Hasselgreen]

... the problem that they will get spreaded in the trade, among aquarists and most likely will not be called "hybrid" all the time. Especially not after changing the keeper twice within a few years. So we were sitting in this pub having a beer and had the idea to give them a number, cause it worked very well with the L-numbers before. Of course we can not list every (ancistrin) hybrid, but we do have all the ones I know about, I think...

I think this could be a very good reason to introduse an own letter for Hybrids.

Obviously, this kind of hybrid numbering scheme will end up entirely legitimising the production of hybrids, and lead to competitions to produce the "coolest" looking loricariid hybrids.

I think you could be very right. I also think that those competions already exist among hobbyists as well as commercial breeders. We know they do among "Show Guppy breeders", with "Japan blue", "Tiger gold" etc.

...Killifish breeding hobbyists. They have been amongst the most scrupulous record keepers and this has helped maintain purebreds down to the collection data ID level for decades. Of course Killifish hobbyists are a fairly small subset of all aquarium fish breeding hobbyists and it's been easier to cultivate an anti-hybrid ethos.

I agree with this too, except seeing the sharing of eggs by ordinary mail all over the world makes me think that all killi breeders are kind of in the same worldwide club. I wonder if they don´t have more members in "one club" than any other club.
Often killi breeders have a serious amount of aquariums and species, but they keep records and strains clean! A lot is to be learnt from that.

They probably wouldn't be legitimised among the "serious" hobbyists, but for the casual users of the site, seeing a numbering system would imply that they are not only tolerated, but encouraged.

I fully support having the synos in the Clog as hybrids. However, they are simply labelled as Synodontis hybrid 1, Synodontis hybrid 2, etc. They are not given the mystique and fetish of a special number handed down from the Gods.

Well... I agree up the point that L-numbers are god given. I am getting so tired of trying to keep track on these L-numbers I am beginning to think the may have originated from that other guy...

Whilst I'm not a fan of purposely interbreeding between species, I can understand that there may be some potentially beneficial results from species interbreeding...

I don´t think I agree with that. If you elaborate I may change my mind.

If I take two bags of loricariid fry to a local auction and label one bag with the scientific name and the other with an L Number the bag labelled with an L Number will always sell for three to four times what I will get for their properly labelled brothers and sisters. Sad fact, but I have proven it to myself time and again.

-Shane

I have noticed the same, and it scares the living daylight out of me.

I believe hybrids should have a name / number of some type. This applies to ones that are bred on a commercial scale. They will enter the shops in increasing numbers and it helps the shops and buyers to ID them. This will also help with their care as people can if willing ensure they have suitable setups, diets and space. I would like to see more effort put into the documentation on them as they tend to be lacking in allot of details. Sizes they grow mating, behaviour towards other fish.

Well.. the fish might benefit from it I guess.

I am not the one who decide this anyway, but some of you guys may be.

If it turns out the way all the other "strain breeder groups" like in some livebearer clubs, the crossbreeds will continue to come, and they will come in large numbers.
To keep it managable for those who are interested in nature, I would vote for a different set of labeling for hybrids altogether. I would not mix the L into that label. I think an LH-XXX would sooner or later be sold by a novice as L-XXX.
Making a totally different " catalog" and hopefully give them a different forum than Planetcatfish might discourage the Hybrids.

As for my personal opinion on man made hybrids:
There are more than enough natural species to keep me not only occupied for the rest of my life, but qalso totally amazed by the diversity.
I would accept a hybrid if you gave it to me, but only to find out what it tastes like after being barbequed.

I hope we don´t all agree, because this is an interesting thread, and I shall be reading more of it with great interest.

Thats my 2 cents worth.

[JamesFish]

Perhaps the system is being used incorrectly and the solution is a separate system for the average user?

[Allen Repashy]

I have been following this topic with interest, and I just thought I would throw another wrench in the gears here. I will use an analogy that I have a lot of experience with, because there are quite a few similar issues, and for the most part, my experience is probably very deep compared to pleco breeding when it comes to how many generations a single breeder has produced in captivity themselves. I am just finishing up a new book with my friend Philippe de Vosjoli, on Rhacodactylus leachianus (a Gecko species) and a huge part of this book will address what we call "Morphotypes" that can be developed from hybridizing, or line breeding a single species.

I may come as a stranger on here to most, but a few might know me from the Reptile Hobby. My multi-generation breeding experience comes from breeding geckos of the Genus Rhacodactylus, and this year, I produced F20 offspring from specimens or R ciliatus. I have that were collected in 1994 (which I still have)

Separate from hybridizing, simple line breeding withing a species, can end up producing specimens over not so many generations, that look VERY different from their ancestors. In geckos, we have color, pattern, scalation, genetic mutations, spotting, size, etc. In fish, you also have similar features, with the addition of such things as fin size.

Using my example, I started with a group of about 24 wild caught specimens of R. ciliatus (now Correlophus ciliatus) that were collected from the same location on the same small island. My first goal was only to establish a good colony and have breeding success. In the first generation of offspring, there were some individuals that were striking (to my eye) and made them more attractive than the others) So I focused more time and attention on these favorite specimens and because of this, became more successful with them. Each generation revealed many offspring with variations, and because I needed to support my project, I of course had to start selling some offspring... keeping my favorite ones for my project......further contributing to my unnatural selection.

Now, 20 generations later, these geckos have become very popular and are bred by many, many breeders. Each of who has different "likes" and breeds multiple generations selecting for traits or mutations that they find appealing, which are often totally different than my tastes. And now, there are pages and pages of what we call "Morphs" that people have named.....Of course the newest morphs, and those produced by the most famous breeders, command very high prices.. Everyone wants to be at the "top of the pyramid" so there is a lot of pressure to come up with new Morphs.

My point is, that if you look at the geckos that are now considered "normal" in the hobby to represent the species, they look absolutely different to the original specimens found in nature. The most obvious comparison would be the Dog. If we didn't know that dogs all came from the wolf, and found them running around in the wild, we would for sure describe them as separate species...

My original group of ciliatus, were collected from a single population, but another species of gecko, Rhacodactlyus ciliatus, I have similar experience with is also a single species, but comes from a group of small coral atoll's (separate islands. Visibly, these wild animals, to the trained eye, can be identified as to their locality because of differences in pattern, size, and head structure.

Only 2-4 pairs of each locality were collected in 1995, and when we bred them together, some interesting things happened....After only 3-4 generations, the geckos in these pure lines, started to show significant variability. Some offspring in one locality type would "fit" the "description" of one of the other island locality types to the point that if you didn't know better, you would swear that they were from a different island then they were actually from.

So what do you do when you want to preserve an island "type" in captivity but you have offspring that do not conform to this "type"? Because of the natural variations we found, we started calling it a "Morphotype" The question becomes this..... Do I try to preserve the bloodlines, and not be concerned with what the animals "look like".and because the original captive population was only a small number of specimens, inbreeding becomes a problem.

And to further the issue. We revisited these islands over the last 20 years, and on some of these islands today, we believe that due to the small size (some islands only a few hectares), and the recent introduction of invasive ants, rats, and cats, and not finding any signs of geckos, that they are now extinct on at least two or three islands..... so we have to decide how we want to "preserve" these localities..... by bloodlines through inbreeding, which can eventually collapse, or "morphotypes" by trying to preserve the appearance of the localities by defining the morphotype and selectively breeding specimens from neighboring islands that fit this type. It is not an easy decision to make. A "Catch-22" so to speak.

Anyways, I am getting a bit long winded here. My main point is that there are a LOT of similarities to the gecko projects I have been involved in, and the Brazilian Plecos.......

With Plecos, w have similar, but different looking "types" that come from different sections of the same river... which are separated, but not as much as island populations.

The Dam project is for sure going to cause the extinction of many types, and in some localities that may survive, the barriers between them will be gone...... so preserving types, or morphotypes is going to be the goal of many dedicated breeders......

To further complicate things with Plecos, we have "Artificial Morphotypes" that are created by collectors who are misidentifying species for profit, and creating new types by simple separating fish collected at the same locality into bags according to color or pattern and calling them each separate types. L333, and LO66 are so variable in nature that many of the rare types such as L236 can simply be fabrications of collectors and exporters who are just sorting for profit.

And to top that off, a lot of the diversity seen here could likely be attributed to the fact that locality populations on a river are NOT as geographically isolated as island populations for example. I don't know the answer, but I would assume, that the further you go down stream, the more variability you have in rivers like the Xingu...... a couple big storms and floods, and it would be easy for animals from one population to get washed downstream to the next population..... not as easy to go upstream, so I would think that there is more distinction between localities higher up the river... so are these lower Xingu types actually species, or just a bunch of mutts that are the result of whatever washes down stream hybridizing?
So what is my point? ..... not sure actually because I have lost myself here! LOL

..... Ok the basic point is that the localities/L Numbers are obviously very mixed up already.... choosing how to "preserve" these "morphotypes" isn't so easy over 10 or 20 generations as you might think...... Is line breeding known locality collected specimens the way to do it? Can it be done without these animals morphing over generations to the point that they no longer visually represent the population they came from? Is it better to define "Morphotypes" and out-cross to keep the lines "looking" like the original population without the threat of inbreeding depression from small gene pools in the captive population?

Does letting hybridizers, or those who want to line breed a single "species" and selectively breed for visually appealing specimens, threaten, or separate them from those wanting to keep localities/species pure? Can a system be created to keep them separate?

L236 seems the classic example. We know today, after multiple breedings, that famously high contrasted specimen in the photos, was an exception to the rule...... to the point that "regular" L236, beautiful in their own right, are almost looked at as rejects.... In 10 generations, what will we know as an L236? something that looks like an L333? something that looks like the picture and is a "hybrid",..... or even just line bred extreme examples from the original "type" that would give us the high contrast specimen, remain pure in blood, but not at all represent what the fish normally looks like.

Lots of things to consider!

Sorry for the novel. I can't help myself sometimes.

Allen

[Mol_PMB]

Allen,
Thank you for taking the time to write the 'novel' - very thought-provoking reading


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[Shane]

Allen,
Fascinating post. Thank you for taking the time to share it. Just out of curiosity, what is the reaction to man made hybrids in the herp hobby?
-Shane

[Amneris3]

Hope I am not interrupting, but how common are pleco hybrids? Which genus can be crossed and is there any reliable information on the web?

For example, someone on another site was saying that a sailfin could cross with a bristlenose. Is this possible or likely? There was a poster that appeared to have a juvenile sailfin with bristles.

It would be nice to have some uniform labeling system so we know what species/crosses we are purchasing, but it seems difficult enough to get correct labeling on "pure" species in most lfs'.

[Barbie]

Amneris it should not be common. That is the first time I've heard of that one, actually, because the size of the plecos involved at sexual maturity is going to be quite ridiculously different. Usually hybridization is occuring at the genus level, with Hypancistrus being one of the more commonly seen misbreedings.

Allen thank you for posting. I think using a species that has that fast of a maturation rate can drastically increase your ability to note and select for specific attributes. I know that I personally choose fish with more clear patterning (larger spots, defined stripes and so on) when I pull F1 fry to hold back as breeders. I do agree that it will impact the breeding program in a few short generations, definitely.

Jools, my vote is no. An attempt should be made to recognize and document the specific crosses, but once they are hybrids, they just attain "Hypancistrus mutt" status, like dogs or mbuna or any of the other commonly mixed "types" and should be kept singly and prevented from breeding.

Barbie

[Jools]

Short round up from me.

So, no to known new hybrid l-numbers.

An alternative (and duplicated) hybrid numbering system is probably not a good idea.

The current / original idea seems to be fine. e.g. Genus species X hybrid sp(y) where X is the genus/species most visible in the hybrid and Y is just a counter.

The examples of dogs and geckos are useful as some l-number hybrids are crossbreeds (like dogs), some are hybrids (perhaps like the gecko, I see two species names but I didn't understand if they were hybridised or not) and some we can't actually say if they are crossbreeds or hybrids yet as we don't know if they involve species or population crosses. Whew.

Shane's question about the view of hybrids in the herp world is indeed an interesting one. I'd add to it by asking what was the view of hybrids when they first appeared and what is it now. I am aware that hybrids are nothing new in fishkeeping but they are fairly new in the catfish world.

I also note that there is a likelihood or school of thought that the common

Ancistrus

sp. is [at least in some parts of the world] hybrids and some of the common

Pterygoplichthys

sp. in the trade also so. Which is also interesting. I am not sure how much DNA testing would help in resolving those.

Jools

[plecoboy]

Do the hybrid fry look similar to each other or do they vary from each other? If they vary, you wouldn't have a set example of that new hybrid number. On the plus side, the average guy probably needs RO water to breed plecos so that may help keep hybrids to a minimum in the trade.

[Jools]

On the plus side, the average guy probably needs RO water to breed plecos so that may help keep hybrids to a minimum in the trade.

That depends a lot on local water quality. Globally, where we see hotspots of pleco breeders, we tend to see them because they don't need to use RO. Every pleco I've bred I've done so in untreated tapwater...

Jools

[mikebren12]

Very interesting debate guys,

Just my ten penth worth.. It seems that hybrids are already in the trade to some degree and there seems a lot of conversation/debate about the I.D for certain scribbles, with catch location if wild caught the deciding factor, however where this is uncertain it can in some cases lead to heated debate.

Is this because certain breeders are trying to line breed some hypans to make them more lucrative to the aquarist?

If so would some of the LH numbers as described maybe help with mis-selling/ and or I.D.

Not all breeders are in it for the joy of breeding, some are trying to make money by misleading/selling...

It may help in the long run.

Mike

[craig09]

Hybridization is rife in the far east i have seen many pictures with some stunning fish but which have been crossed with same genus....
Also with hybridization in time will we will lose track of what species have been crossed if it happens more often ??

heres some pictures i was allowed to use on my group its a L066 & L236 Hybrid

[craig09]

And this is the problem with hybridization this picture below is a Mongrel which i assume had been formed from a tank of mixed hypancistrus species but which species spawned with one another, that is the question

[Jools]

Hi Craig,

So here's one of the major problems/points of confusion.

Neither L066 or L236 are described species (yet). It is possible they are the same species. Therefore, they may not be hybrids and it is crossbreeding and not hybridization that's happening in your first example. That's why it's important to understand the species boundaries (or at least have a stab at them).

If we accept hybrids are bad then I am not necessarily saying indiscriminate cross breeding within species is OK either. I do know that some breeders will be crossing all sorts of things to get back to some of the rare fish that looks like the original DATZ pic and so is more saleable. L144, L250 and L236 being good examples.


Furthermore, mongrel is when you crossbreed (e.g. dalmation and poodle, both breeds of dog or black moor and ranchu, both breeds of goldfish), hybridization is, for example, horse X donkey (a mule).

I will happily stand corrected but mule=hybrid and mongrel=crossbreed.

Jools

[craig09]

No that is true but untill they are described i think we should still class them as hybrids, my own personal opinion that is
Do not get me wrong this L066 & L236 cross is a fantastic looking fish and yes i would have some if the chance came along, therefore i do agree with some kind of system for them,

And i no nothing about cross-breeding dogs so i will not argue with you on that one jools

[Jools]

No that is true but untill they are described i think we should still class them as hybrids, my own personal opinion that is

I completely agree we should treat them as species and so not potentially hybridise them and indeed Planet treats them as such with separate species entries (for now). However, if this is found to be a species complex, they'll all get plonked on to the same page.

Jools