a. coriati

["Ed Pon" <edpon@hotmail.com>]

Earlier this year, the Water-line, a fish store in Mountainview 
California, brought in some A. coriati.  The fish turned out to be 
Pandurini.  I'd say you can't rely on geographical info, spelling, and 
just about any other info when getting Apistos through a store or 
wholesaler. 

Marc Weiss mentioned in an article on discus in the Cichlid News that he 
believed that every variety of wild discuss can be caught in a given 
lake (probably an inaccurate translation on my part)and that we receive 
certain types of discus from certain locales because the people in South 
America sort out the types and label according to what we expect to 
see--i.e. Alenquer Reds, Lake Tefe Greens, etc. Anyway--I expect the 
situation to be somewhat similar with Apistos based on what  I have seen 
has been arriving at my local stores under various names over the past 
year. 

A local wholesaler that I talked who is apparently is very experienced 
in tropical fish, said that he was recording what types of apistos 
appeared from what sources on what month so he can make a reasonably 
accurate guess of what will arrive as, for instance, apistogramma 
trifasciata on February from trans-shipper ABC.  The wholesaler thought 
that this was reasonably accurate based on his experience.  

Anyway--I always enjoyed getting unidentifiable fish to see what they 
grew into.  The sources labeling the fish before-hand has taken some of 
the fun out of searching through tanks to find that unidentified fish.  
Luckily for me, much of the uncertainty still exists when purchasing 
Apistos because of the inability of the sources to accurately label the 
fish.

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