But I dont wanna.. I rather like the Old name better!!
LOL.. LOVE Cichlids but hate the ever changing name game.
+ 1 everywhere on the nett this fish is still called Synspilum...including your own fish Mo
We're at the mercey of the Ichthguys! 
My NEW Vieja SYNSPILUM
- Thread starter Cyberman
- Start date
+ 1 everywhere on the nett this fish is still called Synspilum...including your own fish Mo
We're at the mercey of the Ichthguys! 
+ 1 everywhere on the nett this fish is still called Synspilum...including your own fish Mo
Mine is listed as Synspilum because when I posted it...it WAS synspilum. I generally only look at a couple different sites as being the authority on the nomenclature. If you go look hard enough you will find it as Vieja synspilus...even cichlasoma synspilus. Actually, it was Heiko Bleher who sent me a note correcting a comment I made on an OP fish. How about people who have Convicts. At one point it was simply Archocentrus nigrofasciatus. Now even that has been split into smaller slices and re categorized as Crytoheros. I don't think it will be the first OR the last time we'll see this happen to a fish species.
For what it's worth, here's the rationale of the name change. From the leader in cichlid information, Juan Miquel's CIchlid Room Companion: For many years the most popular scientific name for this fish was that of its junior synonym P. synspilus, although the differences between species were not always clear. DNA analysis showed them as sister species with a low number of differences. McMahan et al (2011) have made a morphological comparison between the two species and finally determined the synonymy of them. Being P. melanurus the older name available, this name prevails, although being less popular than that now in junior synonymy.
I hate that they are lumped together, even if they are the same fish. The colors of each are so different, and so wonderful, and I want them to stay different so you know what fish you are getting (adult coloring) when you order or buy them. It would be a shame if, because they are the same fish, they are breed together and we loose what makes each special. I know the hardcores will always have pick of the litter, but for people like me who often get fish a little further down the line, I have to put a lot of faith in people doing it the right way, and sadly that is not always the case. I understand for science they are the same, but for the hobby, I wish they remained different 
There are around ten different localities of Melanurus, and synspillum is one of them. Even the old syns has variations...
I guess If I'd known these fish were officially Menauraus when I posted this thread I guess I'd had called it that - but call me ignorant or 99% of the hobby who hadn't a clue - ignorant - about the ever changing goal-posts of the ichthylogists name changing "lets complicate this further" game.. its getting to be a farce! Sorry but thats my opinion...
Actually, they are trying to uncomplicate it ... you don't find it complicated when you call a bunch of fish the same scientific name when they are all clearly different?
Why were they named differently, to begin with??? Everyone has for years called one Synspilum or Synspilus and the other Melanurus... Everywhere on the internet calls these fish by those names - now everything has to be changed and re-written... if thats not complicated, I don't know what is....
Bingo.
Used to be they would simply examine physical difference, count scales, fin rays, etc. With DNA it's a whole new game entirely. I mentioned it before...look at Convicts. Used to be one fish...now it's several. That pie will be cut down even further when they dig deeper into the Honduran Red Points. I can almost guarantee that he Labridens group will be another species that it split further...probably the Carpinte as well. It may seem complicated, but as our science gets better, things can appear clearer.
Not everywhere on the internet refers to them as Synspilus. And like someone else said, "I'm a French Model". LOL
One of the reasons a fish may have had a number of names, is back in the 1800s when European/American/etc scientists around the world were first categorizing species is,
for example
1 scientist finds a fish in Mexico, thought to be never before seen before, dubs it Smith, and 100 miles down the road another scientist (same time)finds it (maybe a different color variation, thinking he was first, and calls it Jones.
Whoever got to the typewriter first and published the first scientific description, trumps the any name brought in later.
The locals who've observed, and known about it and its characteristics for centuries, call it Vieja (Spanish for old women), because they say it resembles and acts like an old women.
I was at an auction yesterday, where Amatitlania were causing a bit of confusion until it was realized they were convicts, but..... F1 from a certain area, Siquia, that gave them a unique and different set of colors, and possibly an actual different species, than the normal tank raised convict.
DNA is separating and/or bringing together many species, and we've just got to go with the flow.
As Mo said, it actually makes things clearer in the long run, and gives us options.
for example
1 scientist finds a fish in Mexico, thought to be never before seen before, dubs it Smith, and 100 miles down the road another scientist (same time)finds it (maybe a different color variation, thinking he was first, and calls it Jones.
Whoever got to the typewriter first and published the first scientific description, trumps the any name brought in later.
The locals who've observed, and known about it and its characteristics for centuries, call it Vieja (Spanish for old women), because they say it resembles and acts like an old women.
I was at an auction yesterday, where Amatitlania were causing a bit of confusion until it was realized they were convicts, but..... F1 from a certain area, Siquia, that gave them a unique and different set of colors, and possibly an actual different species, than the normal tank raised convict.
DNA is separating and/or bringing together many species, and we've just got to go with the flow.
As Mo said, it actually makes things clearer in the long run, and gives us options.
Cool... Well I hope we don't get mixes or cross breeds the yellow Mel (formally melanurus) with the red blue Mel (formally synspilus)
