Post by dave pauls on Feb 8, 2021 8:50:31 GMT -6
By Peter Unmack
Have you ever wondered what is a rainbowfish and what isn't a rainbowfish? Many common names make it difficult to know what something really is, in terms of what family it is in. See, common names tend to be specific to a single family. Rainbowfishes are all in the family Melanotaenidae. But some other fishes are called rainbowfish too, but they aren't. For instance, Celebes Rainbowfish is not a rainbowfish. Some in the industry are selling blue eyes as rainbowfishes. Why does any of this matter? Because how you keep, breed, maintain, tank mates, etc for a rainbowfish can be very different to a blue eye or a sailfin silverside. I've made a little phylogenetic tree showing the relationship between various families that are closely related to true rainbowfishes. This is based on our current understanding of their relationships based on a bunch of genetic data.
Have you ever wondered what is a rainbowfish and what isn't a rainbowfish? Many common names make it difficult to know what something really is, in terms of what family it is in. See, common names tend to be specific to a single family. Rainbowfishes are all in the family Melanotaenidae. But some other fishes are called rainbowfish too, but they aren't. For instance, Celebes Rainbowfish is not a rainbowfish. Some in the industry are selling blue eyes as rainbowfishes. Why does any of this matter? Because how you keep, breed, maintain, tank mates, etc for a rainbowfish can be very different to a blue eye or a sailfin silverside. I've made a little phylogenetic tree showing the relationship between various families that are closely related to true rainbowfishes. This is based on our current understanding of their relationships based on a bunch of genetic data.