Re: Re colorful apistos

[Mike & Diane Wise <apistowise@bewellnet.com>]

The holotype and paratypes used by Kullander to describe A. cruzi have, "caudal
fin with ovate or squarish black mid basal caudal spot, otherwise immaculate,
smoky, with indicated darker stripe across middle and darkened hind margin." The
photos of A. cruzi in the Aqualog book match this description - no rows of spots
on the tail, but various colors on the membrane between the rays in the fin. None
of the photos in Mayland & Bork's book match A. cruzi in this respect. They all
have spot rows on the tail. The beige variant shown doesn't look like A. cruzi at
all. I saw the same photo in a Japanese book called South American Dwarf Cichlid:
Tropical fish Collection 6 (p. 122) by Yamazaki, et al. . They listed it as just
Apistogramma sp. I don't recall any information about it & don't read Japanese.
Maybe someone who reads Japanese can help us out (That's a hint, Marco). It sort
of looks like it belongs to the eunotus-complex but is vaguely reminiscent of A.
sp. Pebas/Ampiyacu, which I place in the Rotpunkt-group. The photos in Mayland &
Bork are more like A. cf. cruzi in Aqualog News #16 - the Red Cruzi commonly
found in the hobby. The true A. cruzi, at least one population of it, was once
called the Parallelstreifen (Parallel-striped) Apisto. I must admit that there
are around a dozen populations (species?) in the eunotus-complex. It will take a
lot of detailed specimen collections & taxonomic study to sort them all out. This
will take a lot of time & effort, something no one is ready to tackle right now.

For now, I would call your fish A. cf. cruzi if they have rows of spots on the
tail.

Mike Wise

Paul Evans wrote:

> Mike,
>
> I am confused about the vertical rows of spots on
> the tails.  My fish don't have these (at least
> I have not noticed any).  However, if memory serves,
> the pictures of A. cruzi in Mayland and Bork and
> possibly Aqualog do have these.  I know these books
> are known to be somewhat less than accurate as far
> species identification but I remember thinking as
> I was reading Mayland and Bork that the vertical
> rows of spots on the tails of the A. cruzi were the
> one obvious difference between my fish and the
> pictures.  I wonder if the fish in Mayland and Bork
> are not A. cruzi.  I will haved to look at them again
> when I get home from work.
>
> Paul Evans
>
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