# A Distinction Within The Cobra Family?



## Silence (Sep 22, 2005)

As far as we are concerned, there is a species of Snakehead fish that is called the Cobra Snakehead or its scientific name that is the Channa Marulius.









































And we are also aware that a species of the Snakehead family that is similar to the Cobra Snakehead is indeed the Emperor Snakehead or its scientific name that is the Channa Marulioides.

















The Cobra Snakehead pictures were all taken from Thailand and the Emperor Snakehead in Malaysia. The reason I brought this subject is because I find a confusion with the appearance of some Marulius species that indeed to me looking different than the ones caught in Thailand. I sent every young Marulius pictures that I have to Snakehead.org email address long ago and this was what I received, this time by someone else not Christian:

Dear Channa friend,

Thankyou for the photos.
To us, all the juvenile marulius look like marulius.

Besides that, there is a systematic confusion. In earlier times,
leucopunctata and pseudomarulius were synonymized with marulius. And
there is the strong suspicion that those (from southern India) are
valid species. The ichthyological Channa authority P. Musikasinthorn
has reported a revision of Asian snakeheads
in Taiwan last year. His publication is long awaited for many years
already.
We believe he will revise those too. But until then no scietific work
will touch this field.
Furthermore, we have seen that you may also have added pictures of
people which have caught a C. marulioides from Indonesia. So, for a
proper and sure identification the habitat of the depicted fish would
be necessary.
So far about the C. marulius/marulioides.


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## BLUEDIAMONDRHOM (Jul 19, 2006)

wow great read and kewl pics i dont think i really understand what your trying to say but i think they definatly look alot different as they grow


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## Silence (Sep 22, 2005)

Lol thank you, yes those are amazing species. I must say the pictures I posted have gone out of propotion instead of how I intended to have them organized.

The two pictures of the Indian species, the one below is obviously to be above and the above to be below.

And the pictures of Jean Francois Helias holding the juvenile Cobra 'The one we are most familiar with' is to come above the 'younger in a tank' and finally the rest were all fine as meant to be posted, with different body patterns and so I asked if this one could be a different species of the Cobra family. If anyone has kept the Cobra Snakehead, he / she could really help explaining about the changes in the body pattern.

Below are the pictures I sent to Snakehead.org :


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## robert b (Nov 1, 2005)

nice pics thanks for sharing


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## na_cheers (Mar 23, 2006)

great information!









i've always confuse to distinguish young c.marulius and c.maruliodes. Those with white sopt from india is nice! probably a new species rite.


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