Tail Tales

Written by George J. Reclos Thursday, 28 February 2002 00:00

Some very common questions asked whenever a hobbyist tries to identify the species kept in his tank have to do with the appearance or the anatomy of the fish. The characteristic most often referred is the colour of the fish usually accompanied by its melanin pattern. Sometimes we also refer to their anal fins and especially to their colour, the presence, colour and size of egg spots, or the shape of the tail. Here I just took some photos of that portion of my fish and I hope you will agree with me that each species is different from the others. It is true that most of us do not pay much attention to the other end of the fish because we are normally attracted by the side and the face (perhaps looking for expression of emotions). However, tails and anal fins have their own story to tell. On occasions they carry markings which will enable you to identify different individuals belonging to the same species.

This may be achieved, naturally, by a hobbyist regarding their own fish. For the purposes of this presentation it would be interesting to try to identify any or all of the species the tails of which appear below. Most of Malawi cichlid fans will be able to recognize at least four species. Warning: there may be two photos of the same species and – of course – not all of them are Malawi cichlids. So don’t look at the Atlas to see which cichlid has this beautiful zebra-like tail! By the way, there is something I learned during the photo session which led to this presentation: taking pictures of fish tails is far more difficult than taking a photo of the whole fish. Fish use their tail all the time, which makes it impossible on occasions to focus on the tail at macro mode. As a result, less than 25% of the shots are acceptable.