A. cf. citrinellus - A potential case of F1 Midevils?

mshill90

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I absolutely HATE Midevils. Reason being is because I don't like Red Devils. It's just a personal reference of mine. I absolutely LOVE almost all of the amphilo species. I love their massive size when they mature, and their personality.

When I first came across midevils/red devils, was actually from someone here on MFK asking if I rescued fish. At the time, I had room, and I took in 3 Midevils, and a midas. They were all well over 10" (except the midas)- but there was absolute distinction. The Midevils has less of a shape to the body, and was more of a football shape. They had the larger lips as well like the red devil.

I ended up giving the midevils away, and I kept the midas.. He's filled out nicely.

My local petsmart actually has midas and red devils.. they are in tanks right beside eachother, and I am convinced they have them labeled correctly, as their body shape is very distinctive between the 2.

The first and last pics are the midevil.. and the middle 2 is my Midas.

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Loshmitchell101

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This was a very interesting read, Ive currently just became the proud
owner of a breeding pair of F0 Nicaraguan Barred Midas. We have
also F1 Midas pair, and a pair of hybrid Midevil. I actually really enjoyed
this Thread, very good job

Pics posted of my F0Picture 284.jpg

Picture 284.jpg
 

RD.

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mshill .......... It appears that you missed a major portion of this discussion. There are no absolute distinctions between midevils, and pure labiatus, or pure citrinellus. Unless your fish come with some kind of provenance that traces back to a known collection location in the wild ....... they will (or at least should) all be considered midevils. Same with the fish at your local Petsmart. The chances of them being "pure" anything is pretty much zero, no matter how the fish may appear to you.

I'm not sure what your personal experience is with midevils, but here's mine. Midevils can appear to look exactly as one would expect a wild caught A. labiatus, they can look just as one would expect a wild caught A citrinellus to look, and they can appear to be a mix of varying degrees of either species. The personality/behaviour of the fish can vary between each individual fish, from very calm and able to live in a community setting, to hyper aggressive to the point of killing anything & everything in their tank. There are never any hard & fast rules when comparing the offspring of hybrid crosses, and one can't simply compare 2 or 3 fish that they have personally owned and draw any type of conclusions. These fish are considered aquarium strain "midas" or "red devils", and that's about as far as one can take it.
 

dogofwar

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I think that more fish in the hobby aren't "midevils" (i.e. A. labiatus x A. citrinellum) per se, but more likely crosses of - different - Amphilophus that may or may not actually be the same type of fish...even if they're wild fish from, for example, the same lake...and even if they're scientifically classified as the same species (e.g. A. labiatus).

This is a case where what's available in the hobby / being collected in the wild has outpaced science in classification.

Matt
 

NWatson

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So RD, form the disscusion here all are midevils right? Even the reputable dealers don't collect most of the fish they sell from what I have gathered. So from this thread it sound many think the only way to say they are "pure" is to know the location they were collected from. There is a great deal of variation even from one fish to the other when collection points are known. The complex these guys are in always seems to be shifting and adding other species. Nice thread.
 

RD.

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This is a case where what's available in the hobby / being collected in the wild has outpaced science in classification.
Agreed. Having said that I would guesstimate that for every "pure" labiatus or citrinellus that's sold in the aquarium trade in North America, there are a million or more midevils sold. I don't know of any big box chain stores that buy pure fish from the midas complex, most are farm fish that are purchased from large scale wholesale vendors, such as Segrest Farms. Within the same order of fish, some fish mature looking like a typical labiatus, some like a typical looking citrinellus, and some a mix of both. Hence the reason for numerous threads in the past asking whether a persons fish is a "midas", or "red devil".

Now it appears that as hobbyists we have a much more serious situation, where as you just stated; crosses of - different - Amphilophus that may or may not actually be the same type of fish...even if they're wild fish from, for example, the same lake...and even if they're scientifically classified as the same species (e.g. A. labiatus).
 

RD.

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So RD, form the disscusion here all are midevils right?
No, I certainly wouldn't go that far, but I do believe that there is plenty of room for error within this complex of fish, wild, or not.
 

Aquanero

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I don't know how much hybridization occers in the wild, perhaps not as much as you might think. I think more fish are misrepresented or "unkown" rather than natural hybrids within the Amphilophus group. As an example Amphilophus sp. Red Isletas is a localized subspecies of Citrinellum, they can go anywhere in the lake they want but have evolved to exploit a specific nich in a specific area and remain there breeding true. Same as Labiatus, Xiloenses, Chancho, Amarillo ect. IMO they're all subspecies as enviromentally adoptations branching from a common ancester however not that far removed from one another like Darwins finches. This is not to say that due to certain envromental curcumstances hybridization has never occered in the wild, I just submitt it is not very common, if it was we would not see the diversafication we do. Once the fish are in the hobby however I agree all bets are off and a Cit x Xilo would look just like a Cit x Lab or Lab x Sag I agree there is really know way to tell for sure what makes up the fish swimming in your tank and it's assumed they are Cit x Lab which has really just become a generic term for an Amphilophus sp. ? tank breed strain of who knows what. I know I took the long way around the block but I find it interesting.
 

RD.

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Tom, I'm in complete agreement - in the wild these fish manage to get it right almost all of the time. As you said once these fish are in the hobby all bets are off.

I'm surprised that no one commented about the wild "pair" of labiatus that I posted on page 1. Sold as a pair yet IMHO other than having a laterally compressed body that female looks nothing like what I would expect a female labiatus to look like.
 

dogofwar

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I actually don't think that's the case...Willem and others have seen plenty of "mixed" pairs in the wild.

We label them "hybrid" because scientists who have a proclivity for splitting (taxonomically)...have classified them as different species...the fish, I guess, beg to differ.

In reality, these are really, really genetically similar fish. And different species in a crater lake likely evolved (specialized) from a shared "parent" species.

Matt

Tom, I'm in complete agreement - in the wild these fish manage to get it right almost all of the time. As you said once these fish are in the hobby all bets are off.

I'm surprised that no one commented about the wild "pair" of labiatus that I posted on page 1. Sold as a pair yet IMHO other than having a laterally compressed body that female looks nothing like what I would expect a female labiatus to look like.
 
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