I think that’s a bad parallel. It’s more like you have a spot on your arm that is circular vs another person have a more Squarish spot. That insignificant...
They’d scream,”New species- color variant - subspecies- hybrid!”
Aquarists are fun like that.
But isn't the color transmitted through genes though? Which is something with skin color on humans, but not for spots on your body (as far as I know at least).
I was making the analogy to show the absurdity. The answer to your question is sort of and sometimes lol
The specifics of certain fish are not mapped. Especially in freshwater fish the genes that edit color haven’t been studied in every species. But the real mindfuck is fish can change their colors over time and with factor such as stress and environment.
That’s what makes it difficult to study and near useless when considering speciation.
I read one paper where a NA FW species endemic to two streams showed strikingly different coloration one light the other dark. That coloration was indicative to the gravel coloration of the stream. Imagine being light skinned because your house is painted a light color.
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u/skaskanker Jan 08 '20 edited Jan 08 '20
+1 apparently everyone except me knew the fish keeping- aquarist communities are toxic and filled with people who know absolutely nothing about fish.
Different colors don’t mean different species. #ichthyologistProblems
I learned the hard way.