Id ask

[Marcin Chyla]

Hello , I bought this species in 2017 form the German Glasser company. They was labeled “P. sp. bintan form.
I’m keeping them since then and never cared about their ID , but just to fulfil my curiosity – Do You have any thoughts about what species is it ?
They seems to look little different than the “Blue line” form and also the “Sintang” . Any ideas ?

Thanks for any comments
Greetings!

[Peter Finke]

Martin, I am afraid: Your pictures are by far too bad in order to reply to your question. One hat to see the sharp details of all fins, their correct colours and structure, and sometimes even the details of the body.
But in may cases there is no better determination than that Glaser (with one s!) has given. There are very good people working who know the problems of Paro-determination especially with the wide-range species bintan. It is quite correct and up to date that many bintan-like fish are to be called spec. aff. bintan or cf. bintan, and in many cases they simply are bintan, this indicating local small differences only and not a different species to be scientfically described later.
I am quite sure that it is not the Sentang-form which is duller and not so sparkling in the fin’s colours. So, it may well be a blue line-type from the Sungai Tungkal-region of Jambi/Sumatra, since the short ventrals match with the first types from over there described using this commercial name. Unfortunately, later on there were fish with much longer ventrals sold bearing the same name. This is a real problem, since that refers to structure and not colour only. But I am afraid that only indicates that this commercial name cannot longer be taken as a clear indication of a single locality (as it was in the beginning). Probably, in the long run we have to drop that name. It is rarely helpful if commercial people try to create an popular name (“blue line”) which is inexact and misleading.
Therefore, we need better pictures, but maybe even then Glaser cannot use a different naming. So, be content with this; it indicates our present knowledge and perhaps even the present state of evolutionary affairs in the genus.
Peter Finke

[Marcin Chyla]

Thank You Peter for this detail answer. I also notice this short ventrals – every Bintan form I had before this, have a long ventral fin. I have 9 offsprings from them, and they are just before mature – it’s intresting if they will have short ventral fins also 🙂

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