Nah, nah Mo. You can't just post a pic of something like that and disappear? Where does it come from? How did you get them? Collection point? Travel tales? Are these the first ones in the hobby? I've never seen or heard of a gold Jag before.
LOL I didn't disappear? I posted these before as well. I got these from my friends at Segrest Farms as a photo project. This particular batch came from the Czech Republic. The gold form is found in the wild but very rare. Here's an excerpt of an article from Dr. Paul Loiselle that was published in 1980:
"Golden individuals of
P. managuense are very infrequently encountered in Lakes Managua and Nicaragua (Astorqui 1971). Their rarity may be due to the fact that contrary to the case in other naturally occurring oligomelanic Neotropical cichlid morphs, the fry of such
P. managuense are golden at hatching, which puts them at a substantially greater risk of predation than their normally pigmented counterparts. Oligomelanism in
P. managuense is determined by a single gene that behaves as a Mendelian recessive. A complex of polygenic modifiers appears to control the extent of the residual color pattem (Loiselle, l973). First imported into the United States in 1964,
P. managuense was the first Central American guapote bred in captivity."
Coincidentally the fish was much more frequently seen many years ago. I've had them before, but the pattern was much more visible. Jeff Rapps is credited with bringing them into the hobby back then. This particular batch of fish is almost devoid of any pattern which, while unusual, makes sense since the fish was probably line bred for several generations to get that particular trait. I had some from the first batch Segrest brought in. I do believe they are getting more. SO they should be available.
Here's one of my larger males that I had previously.
