Fish Identification From Photograph

The discussion in Introduce Yourself:


Littlefish
Without wishing to sound like a numpty, but can any of you "old timers"/experienced fishy peeps help to identify the fish in Mark's first picture. Thanks.

Paddyc
In fear of sounding like a numpty myself... Maybe an Albino Red Tail shark or something like that? Can you even get those???

Sue
It's an not oddball (he said so). It's big. There are several in his tank.

Which means I don't know as I haven't a clue about most big fish. But it has a sort of barb appearance to it.......

Littlefish
I'm guessing that the odd thing about it is that it doesn't normally have spots.

After a rummage around YouTube, following the links that Mark posted, being distracted by all the ones about the black ghost (which was awesome), and finally coming across one titled "Barbs and lettuce" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRnzMFaUWiI" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRnzMFaUWiI</a>
where a pair of the fish in question make an appearance.
Clip says it contains the following fish "Lemon Fin Barbs/Diamond Barb/Diamond Shark (Hypsibarbus wetmorei)", so I had a look at them and couldn't find any with spots on.
However, did find a link to the PFK forum archive where there was a discussion about lemon fin barbs being sold to people as diamond sharks, so I think Paddy can come out from behind the sofa because barb or shark even more experienced people were being mis-sold one as the other (didn't think it could be an albino with spots though).

That's as far as I've got because I keep getting distracted by other fish.

Sue
Got it!

In his post, member Hampalong said "I'll let you guess what it is".

That was a huge clue.


When you all give up, I'll tell you what it is and how I found out 

(it did involve a bit of 'cheating')






Please post your suggestions below and I'll say if you're right *smug feeling*   

Littlefish
I'm guessing that the odd thing about it is that it doesn't normally have spots.

Actually, there isn't anything odd about it. Oddball is a fish group. You have some - puffers are classed as oddball fish. The group includes anything that won't fit in another group. They're not characins or cypranids or catfish or loaches or anabatids etc


Clue - he said he doesn't have any oddballs at the moment unless you count this. Which means it isn't in the oddball group but is a rarely sold member of one of the other groups.

Yes, and no.

OK so now we've narrowed down the group to cypranids.



I mentioned above that it is rarely sold. It doesn't have a common name so you'll have to give the scientific name.

I could take a punt at it.....

I'd play along, but to hamper the fun would be unkind.

In any case, there's a tv program on now about gazelles and impalas so I'll have to bow out

I could take a punt at it.....

Yeah someone pease join me.... 

If it helps, that was one of the first fish I looked at 


Don't forget I said I cheated to find the answer, ie I didn't just look at lists of barbs. And when you find it, it will be glaringly obvious. Hint - look at exactly what hampalong said in his posts and work from there.

Darn, I've missed out on all of this today.
Ok, looks like I need to start having a think. 

Colin has the genus right, he just needs the species now.

In other words he got the first part of the latin name, he just needs the second word.