Genus cf. species

[yikai]

Received a few PMs over the weeks regarding the meaning of cf. inbetween scientific names. decided to do a short but very useful write up on the terminology of "cf", placed between scientific names of fishes, to provide information on this. Ever came across this term and wondered what it is? for example, Cirrhilabrus cf. lanceolatus. cf, means to confer, and means "looks like" in a lose manner. For a fish that is unidentified, be it scientifically a new unid-ed species, or if the LFS or supplier lazy to ID, a "cf." is placed between the genus and the species, of a fish that closely resembles the un-id.

for example we have acanthurus leucosternon, the powder blue. a powder blue and powder brown hybrid, maybe a A.leucosternon X nigricans, is caught, and is not ID-ed as a hybrid, but instead, labelled as acanthurus cf. leucosternon. most often, reefers ignore the cf and treat the fish as genus species, instead of genus cf. species. so the Acanthurus cf. leucosternon will be treated as an acanthurus leucosternon. the appearance of the fish differ but people ignore the cf and assume it as the closely resembled species.

there are many fishes in our local industry tat uses this "cf." a very very good example is the rosy-fin wrasse and the hooded wrasse. Cirrhilabrus cf. bathyphilus, and cirrhilabrus bathyphilus. The former for rosyfin and the latter for hooded. it has already been scientifically proven that these two fishes are in fact, the same, and have the scientific name labelled C. bathyphilus. so there's no such thing as rosyfin.

another good example is the temminkii complex wrasses. There are many temminkii look alikes that are labelled as hybrids or new species, but infact, are just geological variations. and thus the cf comes in handy here, where "looks like" temminkii is stated.

there are many more fishes out there with the cf. being used, and i hope this explanation is not too difficult to digest.