inside the Aquarium

The big Endangered Fish tank, housing yellow-tailed catfish (Pangasius pangasius), crystal-eyed catfish (Hemibagrus wyckii), fork-tailed catfish (Wallago leeri), hampala barb (Hampala macrolepidota), Julliens golden barb (Probarbus jullieni), red-finned cigar shark (Leptobarbus hoevenii), and the giant gouramis (Osphronemus laticlavius) and (O. goramy).

The common names are those used on the signage.

Read about my visit here: http://www.zoochat.com/249/zoo-negara-visit-15-dec-2013-a-348984/

Did you get a photo of the Leptobarbus hoevenii? I've been looking for a photo of a living specimen but haven't been able to find any. To my knowledge all "Leptobarbus hoevenii" in aquaria are Leptobarbus rubripinna. However, Malaysia is within the native range of L. hoevenii and this could mean that they have the real thing

condor said:

Did you get a photo of the Leptobarbus hoevenii? I've been looking for a photo of a living specimen but haven't been able to find any. To my knowledge all "Leptobarbus hoevenii" in aquaria are Leptobarbus rubripinna. However, Malaysia is within the native range of L. hoevenii and this could mean that they have the real thing

Click to expand...

I only have one clear(-ish) photo of any of the Leptobarbus specimens, which I have attached. I expect that Chlidonias will have much better photos. I also have a number of blurry shots, some of which show other individuals and show colouration better - I can send them if you'd like, but let's see what Chli says first.

Just out of interest, how do you distinguish between the two species?

And a low-quality image of the sign, which might add to the ambiguity.

Thanks devilfish. The photo of the sign isn't clear enough to say anything for certain (just like the Leptobarbus visible center-right on Chlidonias' photo), but the specimen on your first photo is L. rubripinna. This species was generally included in L. hoevenii until fairly recently, and few (if any) aquaria have updated their species signs. In theory, the two are easily separated by range, with L. rubripinna in Indochina and L. hoevenii in the Thai-Malay Peninsula and the Greater Sundas. Unfortunately L. rubripinna is widely exported and kept in aquaculture, and this blurrs any distribution differences. Though there are still some unanswered questions in the separation of full adults, the two can generally be separated by the position of the eye and the head shape: Eye closer to the relatively flat forehead in L. hoevenii vs. quite central on the head in L. rubripinna, which also has a more rounded forehead. Reported differences in colouration are specific to young specimens: Young L. rubripinna have a broad dark stripe along the body (narrow and faint in young L. hoevenii), and reddish-orange to the pelvic and anal fins (lacking in young L. hoevenii). I have attached the photo of a L. hoevenii museum specimen from Tan and Kottelat, 2009. Note the relatively flat forehead and eye position.

well I was going to say I have a photo of the sign on the tank (all the photos were of fish in the tank itself I think) but devilfish has already posted that. I don't have any good fish photos from here because at the zoo I have a longer lens on my SLR which is no good for aquariums obviously, and then my auto-focussing point-and-shoot for enclosures and what-not, and that can't get good photos of fish. I'll see what is in the background of my attempts at Wallago photos.

I haven't any photos of the live fish, but here's a better photo of the sign which devilfish attached earlier

Thanks, the sign appears to show L. rubripinna. I also believe it shows a fairly young adult, as there appears to be remnants of reddish-orange on the pelvic and anal fins; a feature otherwise restricted to immature L. rubripinna.

I saw a small tank of what were labelled as Leptobarbus hoevenii in Yangon the other day (at the Kandawgyi Fresh Water Fish Garden) but I didn't remember this thread at the time. I tried to get a photo of the fish but the tank was small and they kept freaking out so I left them alone.

In theory they could be the true hoevenii but Burma is just as full of exotic tropicals for aquariums as any other country, and if it is rubripinna which is common in the trade then that is probably what they were.