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Tiger vs Bee naming conventions (plus general shrimp history)


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Main question: Is the main reason why some wild shrimp species are called Tigers and others Bee just because some have thin stripes and other have large sections, or is there some other reason for this naming convention?

 

So I'm getting back into the shrimp hobby after a few years absence, and as I'm getting a little overwhelmed at all the new varieties I decided it might be a good idea to go back to one of the projects I was starting when I quit: to research the history of the various shrimp varieties to really understand what comes from what and how. Now I know that Soothing and others smarter and more experienced than I am were overwhelmed by this, and I remember thinking that if I came across one more 10+ year old forum post that redirected to a "we're sorry, this page is no longer available" message I was going to tear my hair out, but I learned a lot and I'm ready to give it another shot. I used that one rah-bop chart we've all seen a million times, but I'd like to be able to independently verify all that information.  

 

It seems that one of the biggest trends in new shrimp over the last few years have resulted from various crosses with tiger shrimp. While I initially focused on Crystals and TBs I want to extend my research to the various Tigers as well. Which has me thinking about naming conventions. If I remember correctly, standard Tigers and Crystals/TB are both C. cantonensis, despite coming from different varieties called tiger and bee respectively. And the Super Tiger, Red Tiger, and Tangerine Tiger (along with the newer red and blue Tupfel) are all tigers but are different species despite interbreeding with cantonensis. And there are a few Tiger species that do not interbreed. In addition there are a few species such as the Paracaridina 'Blue Bees' that are referred to as Bee shrimp but do not interbreed with cantonensis.  So is the reason behind the naming convention as obvious as it seems? Tigers have thin stripes, and Bees have large sections that look like a bumblebee. I'm about to dive into more scientific literature to try to figure out some basic origins and distribution of tigers, as well as when where and in what order some of the captive bred varieties appeared, but I wanted to clear up this simple point first.

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Also, while I have lost 90% of my source material I was working off of, I did find a rough sketch of a chart for some of my findings. I know some of what I found was suspect and needed further corroboration, but I'll attach a picture here. If anybody notices any glaring inaccuracies please let me know, it will greatly help going forward. Also, If anyone has any suggestions for facebook groups, foreign language forums (praise google translate), or any other good places to find good info, that would help as well.

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The last time this was discussed, this is how I basically understood it: 

 

Almost all of the domestic Bee/Tiger/Tangerine Tiger shrimp are hybrids at this point.
Calling a domestic Bee Shrimp a C. cantonensis is a bit like calling a chicken a "junglefowl".
Some genetic analysis was performed and basically, all of the Bee/Tiger/Tangerine Tiger are primarily C. cantonensis. This doesn't mean that they are entirely C. cantonensis, they are hybrids. It is just that the "base genetic stock" for all of the domestic strains of Bee/Tiger/Etc is C cantonensis.

 

Wild-type C. cantonensis

The mother of all of these shrimp. Honestly doesn't look much like a bee or a tiger. It looks closer to a "tangerine tiger".
The physical characteristics of this shrimp seem to be the most prevalent in all of our domestic shrimp. This seems to be the domesticated shrimp that was originally developed and was then hybridized to produce all of our other pet shrimp

 

Wild Bee Shrimp- C. logemanni 

These are a unique species in the wild. They look very similar to the domestic species, with a greater variation in coloration. However, our domestic species has the traits of C. cantonensis, so this was probably crossed into C. cantonensis for stability purposes

 

Wild Tiger Shrimp-C. mariae

These are a unique species in the wild. They look very similar to the domestic species, with a greater variation in coloration and striping density. The wild tiger was almost certainly crossed with a domestic bee to produce a new shrimp that looked like a tiger(had the tiger stripe genes), but the stable domestic genes of a bee shrimp

Wild Tangerine Tiger- C. serrata(cancelled)
This gets a bit hairy, but there does seem to be a unique wild species that this species was based on. However, all of the domestic species and their unique colors are just bee shrimp. Good luck going further. The coloration doesn't seem to originate from any wild-type, but the "whole body" coloration may have come from a gene expressed in the wild shrimp.

 

" Super Tiger, Red Tiger", etc

These are all just strains of the "tiger shrimp" line. How they develop them could be a bit of a mystery. As I said, the actual wild-type has a lot of variability in the coloration and striping. They may have grabbed a wild-type with the genes they wanted and bred it back into the strain OR they might have slowly bred them from the first domestic "tiger shrimp".

 

Tangerine Tiger, Aura Blue, Tupfel Shrimp etc

These are claimed to be another Caridinia species. They might have been, but the domestic ones are "bee shrimp". They do, however, show a different color variability which is more similar to the neocardinia(whole body color with wide-ranging hues and intensity), rather than stripes of varying thickness/color but nearly-constant opacity(such as that found in bee/tigers).

 

Paracaridina

These all seem to be different species with no cross-breeding, though there are quite a few of them out there. Even if they are called "blue bees", it was just an unfortunate accident in naming

 

Variability in water conditions amongst tangerine tiger/bee/tiger/etc

Given that these are all essentially the same shrimp, this seems to be based much more on where they were bred. German lines seem to prefer harder water lines while Asian breeder-developed shrimp prefer soft water. This is my own speculation and not based on any actual information, but it makes sense.

German- Tangerine Tiger/Tiger

Asian - Bee/Tiger

 

http://easyshrimp.blogspot.com/p/caridina-cantonensis.html

Serious Fish Article

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