20 inch ex-Cichlasoma festae

[RD.]

Many thanks to Windsor Aguirre, Assistant Professor, Deptartment of Biological Sciences, DePaul University for the following information.

Windsor & his research team study the native freshwater fish of Western Ecuador. In their listing for Cichlasoma festae they had 50 cm listed as the maximum size. For those that are metric challanged, that's just a hair under 19 3/4 inches, which is by far the largest wild or domestic festae that I have ever heard or read about over the years.

http://condor.depaul.edu/waguirre/fishwestec/cichlasoma_festae.html

I decided to follow up on this data & contacted Windsor with a few questions regarding this specimen. The following was his response.

Hi Neil,

I heard back from Enrique. Please see below for his original message in Spanish. Enrique graduated from the University of Guayaquil a few years ago and now works at the National Institute of Fisheries in Guayaquil.

The specimen isn't in a museum so it will be difficult to verify officially but it was preserved and is part of a small collection kept by the Aquaculture lab at the University of Guayaquil. The measure is for total length (I'll have to add that when I get back to Chicago) for a wild-caught male caught in wetlands near the city of Vinces in Los Rios province (western Ecuador) in 2008.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Windsor

This fish was most likely an old bull male, that ate small fish as his main staple, but it just goes to show how large these fish have the potential to truly get. With all of the interest lately on festae I thought that some of you might find this interesting.

 

[sam_everist]

Photos or it didnt happen

 

[EBJDguy]

Pictures!!

 

[RD.]

Pictures of what, a fish that's been dead since 2008?

 

[Miguel]

Wow!!

 

[kenhamson]

^they said its preserved

 

[TMSB805]

Pictures of what, a fish that's been dead since 2008?

Such a hard crowd to please..lol.

Interesting though. I'd love to see festae that large. I'd also be curious to see who has the largest male on this site.

 

[RD.]

^they said its preserved

No kidding. And your point is?

The assistant professor from DePaul University that was kind enough to respond to my email, and track down the information that I requested from the person that was on his team back in 2008, that originally collected this specimen, is currently working in the field in Ecuador.

Quite frankly I'm amazed that he took the time to respond to some joe blow hobbyists email, let alone track down the info that I requested. Now I am to ask him to provide photos, from a preserved specimen located at the aquaculture lab at the University of Guayaquil?

Estás loco?

 

[Miguel]

Would love to see such a beast live. Why do you surmise that his diet consisted mostly of fish, Neill? Would an old and healthy Festae bull not attain this size with their "normal, wild " diet?

Is this size a rarity in the wild?

 

[RD.]

Miguel, I believe that in the wild the "normal" diet of large adult festae would mostly consist of small fish.

As far as this size being normal, not from anything that I have read over the years with regards to festae collected in the wild - but to be honest there isn't a lot of data out there. These researchers use a safe, but effective form of electric shock to collect their fish, which is probably why they are able to collect older, larger, more wiser specimens, vs those simply utilizing nets.