Help ID Fish Please.

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

Hello People viewing this thread


I needed help IDing this fish I got from my LFS. It was sold to me as a killie fish, which is obv. isn't.

I found out myself it was a some type of gudgeon sp. of fish. I've been looking around and can't find an exact sp. of gudgeon. Witch I really want. That's where you viewers/experts come in.

Here are a couple pictures, if you could get me an exact sp. that would be great. Also, if you find something that you might think it is, post up a link and i'll compare myself aswell.


Thanks in advance for checking the thread, here are the pictures.

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

I'm just going to take a guess aswell, I think it might be a purple-spotted gudgeon because of the markers on his gill plate. If so, I shouldn't be keeping him in a 5G for a long time. Only reason why I would doubt my guess is because he has such dark color compared to other gudgeons I could find.

 

[bs6749]

I haven't even seen this fish before though it may be common. Funny as it may sound, "gudgeon" was the first thing that came to mind! No joke!!! Let me look around on it.

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

That's the reason why I got the fish, it was unique and I needed some life in my 5G besides plants and snails. Weird how that came to mind for you though, first thing that came to my mind was killie fish, but was wondering why it didn't swimming around like other killies, somehow I came across gudgeons and found what type of fish he was, now I got to find a sp.

Hopefully the sp. I got of gudgeon don't get to big, I would have to take him back and he is an amazing fish, don't want to do that.

Just tell me what you find or whatever.

 

[bs6749]

Hmmm, try looking up information under "purple spotted goby" instead of gudgeon.

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

I'm trying to look up freshwater gobies, also just an add in bryan. If you look at his eyes, he has this unique, colorful shine in them, I haven't seen any gudgeons with that, so i'm gettin' confused. Haha.

It's not the camera doing it either, in person he has that reflection, very weird, but way cool.

 

[krap101]

Do you have any nuclear power plants nearby?

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

Lol krap, no I don't haha.

I just can't find it anywhere, it's so weird it's like it's a brand new sp. or something.

 

[timwag2001]

how about a darter?

 

[krap101]

I found a few of these at my lfs as "killifish" too... I lost all respect for them.. She was trying to convince me that it was a killifish too..

 

[krap101]

I've been looking a little bit, and darter sounds like a good pick. Eh?

 

[Tony Gill]

It's a young Mogurnda - so "purple spotted gudgeon" (or goby ... or even sleeper if you are so inclined) is correct. I'll see if I can get a species name on it when I have access to literature tomorrow at work. However, it may be tricky given the small size of the fish - I think I can get reasonable scale counts from the photos (one of the ways to narrow down species in this genus).

They are great fish (wish I owned it!), but they are a bit on the aggressive side, and will also get largish. More information though once I have a better handle on the species name.

Tony

 

[Tony Gill]

I forgot to comment on the eyes. Quite a few gudgeons have eyes like this. You will see something similar in other fishes, such as barramundi and Old World knife fishes. I've forgotten the term for eyes of this type - so much for being an ichthyologist! I'll see if I can jog my memory tomorrow and post something then.

Tony

 

[Tony Gill]

Also forgot to mention something on how to tell gudgeons from darters. They do look a lot alike, but are in very different families (darters are perches, family Percidae). Some of the Australian gudgeons (such as Gobiomorphus coxii) behave a lot like darters too. There are no shortage of internal characters for telling the two apart, but some of the external ones are fairly subtle. One relatively easy one is that darters have a lateral line consisting of tubed scales on the sides of the body; they also have a branch of the lateral line system in bony tubular bones around the lower part of the eye. With the exception of several very primitive members of the Gobioidei (the suborder that includes gobies and their relatives), gobioids lack tubed lateral line scales on the body and the tubular bones around the bottom of the eye. (If you look closely, however, you may be able to see an elaborate pattern of lateral-line organs (neuromasts) on the cheeks and on the sides of the body. The pattern of these organs is often used to identify different gobioid species.)

Tony

 

[Tony Gill]

I took another look at the photos and compared them with literature I had on Mogurnda. As I mentioned before, it is kind of tough identifying small individuals of this genus as they haven't developed their characteristic body shapes and colour patterns. Still, from what I could make out, you most likely have Mogurnda mogurnda, a species from Australia and southern New Guinea. They grow to about 12 cm (5 inches) and have a reputation for being a little on the nasty side. It's still a pretty cool fish though.

As for the eye reflection thing, I eventually remembered the details. It's called the tapetum lucidum. It's a reflective layer with guanine crystals that reflects light back on to eye lens, allowing fish to see in lower light conditions. It's often found in nocturnal fishes or those that live in deeper water. Perhaps the most famous such species in the USA is the walleye, which gets its name from its glassy stare. You can find out more about the structure by doing a search on "tapetum lucidum".

Tony

 

[FishCrazyBenBOMB]

Thanks, I was hoping it would be a fish that wouldn't get that big, since now if he does i'll eventually have to take him back. Thanks a lot though.