Peacock Interbreeding Question

Originally posted by Rare Cichlids


And the part about the scientist not being able to decide if they are different species is also not valid. The situation isn't that the scientist can't decide if the fish are separate species. The problem is that there has not been very many people to work with these fish. Thus few studies have been done.
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That's exactly my point...how can you support him in saying that they're likely to split into different species when you even know that they just simply don't know that much about them. Childawg is stating as fact something that NO one could possibly know.

And as far as the accusation of me introducting racism into the argument...that's total BS. It had nothing to do with race and everything to do with genetics. The point was that people from all over the earth have mixed genes for thousands of years as we overcame geographic hurdles. No one seems to see that as a problem. And to tie back to fishkeeping...many of the "geographic" variants are just as likely to be an example of divergent evolution as closely related separate species.

It is my opinion that if you want to interbreed any fish, that's your perogative (sp?), but if you want to breed different colors/variants of the same species...I'm all for it. It's always nice to see a new variety of color without the "physical deformities" of some of the more distant interbreedings.
 
I guess that I support you in the prerogative thing, but I would like to be able to know that what I am buying is that which I have expected. The point is that peacock names with different geographic regions attached to them will interbreed. If you are going to sell peacocks as simply the species name, I guess that would be okay, but, as long as you have gone out of your way to buy certain geographic variants of your fish, why would you interbreed them?

I did not realize that the thing about humans was meant to deal with genetics and not racism, so I apologize.
 
Now you bring up something I do agree with. I would be disappointed if someone was trying to sell me an interbred species as pure bred. I guess I wasn't thinking about this from a breeder/sales point of view.
 
Originally posted by morleyz


That's exactly my point...how can you support him in saying that they're likely to split into different species when you even know that they just simply don't know that much about them. Childawg is stating as fact something that NO one could possibly know.
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I said that the research has not been done to determine whether the fish are separate species or not. But that does not mean that we (and many professional) can't speculate, from the information about size, coloration, and behavioral differences, that they likely are separate species.
 
I say, "Breed and let breed!". By placing fish in our tanks we are already altering nature, so what the heck? Just think of that Peackock who had his eye on that cool little hottie chillin at the other end of the tank? Is anyone thinking about his desires? If we must take these animals from their natural habitat to display in our living rooms, the least we can do is let them get a piece!

Of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong.
 
I have been keeping Malawians for a long time, but I still consider myself a novice. We do "take these animals from their natural habitat to display in our living rooms," but as a novice, I don't always know what species are pure-bred unless they are F0s or F1s. So my point is I would like to think that my little slice of nature in my living room is as close to an exact biotope of the lake as possible; therefore, I absolutely do not support the interbreeding of any species.
 
Whoah whoah whoah. Go back to the dividing of Amphilophus. Could you direct me to a site that has a cladogram posted or at least quickly describe it to me?
 
The reason I don't go with letting peacocks interbreed is the danger of ending up with a homogenous captive population, where they all look the same. Whether they are different species or subspecies is not the point; they are different populations that do not interbreed in the wild. It's not just about some principled desire to keep the line "pure" - it is about maintaining a range of distinct types with which to grace our tanks.

If you took 100 different peacocks and bunged them in a huge tropical pool, what would you have in 10 generations' time? Probably a homogenous gene pool, with every fish looking like the Heinz 57 it is.
 
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