Re: N.nudiceps

[Steven White <sawhite@bicnet.net>]

Steven J. Waldron wrote:
> 
> For what it's worth, I've seen both forms come in together in wild
> shipments. Of course this doesn't exclude the possibility that collectors
> may be consolidating populations for export. Most often though, the many
> shipments I've seen have been uniformly "parilus". Just another speculative
> dos pesos
> - Steve
> 

Nanochromis nudiceps and parilus are two different fish but I don't
think that nudiceps is, now, ever exported commercially (at least, not
for years nor ever in any quantity), but I can really understand why
identification of these fish is difficult. Years ago I had the pleasure
of keeping and spawning what is apparently the true nudiceps that were
acquired from Aquarium Mimbon in Germany through Waterlife Imports. The
males have a more uniformly marked caudal with the red and white, while
the female lacks the bars on the caudal that is so distinctive of
parilus females and males of parilus, even those males of the color
morph that have the red and white striping!


Parilus males occur in two color morphs, even in the same locale. The
type with the more ornate finnage is found less often and is the fish
that people have called splendens (real wishful thinking) in the past.
After Roberts and Stewarts paper in 1976 describing parilus (as well as
splendens and consortus) it was realized that what we hobbyists had been
calling nudiceps for decades was a separate fish and nudiceps was not in
the hobby (maybe only very, very rarely). Also, Roberts and Stewart were
able to shed light on the fact that what had been observed for years
(two color forms of parilus males showing up in shipments) was, most
likely, true  In the current Cichlids of West Africa, by Linke and
Staeck, a male of nudiceps is pictured on page 88, while photos of both
forms of male parilus are found on pg. 90 and pg. 92.
												Steve White
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