Another strain of Leucosticta?

[DaveB]

I picked three of these guys up last week from a seller who advertised them as satanoperca sp. Red Lip. Since I have a red lip (photo here), I was eager to pick these up, especially at 3/$30.

When I picked them up they looked like plain old leucosticta to me, but when I finally got them home and in the tank they do definitely have a bit of redness to them. Not so much in the lip area, but their fins are very noticeably pink. It's almost like it's a leucosticta with altifrons fins or something.

Not sure how well it shows up in these pics (and every time I take a flash photo it really highlights how crappy my live plants look) but here are three shots of the new ones. (Edit: Or just one, because the other two aren't useful) Anyone ever seen a fish like this before? They get along just fine with my three original leucosticta - will they all blend together and mate, or will they stick to their own?

 

[peathenster]

wow - that's a lot of red on the leucosticta. There seem to be some color variations depending on the locale (not just fins but also base color etc), and you sure got some good-looking ones!

 

[straitjacketstar]

Looks like you have S. leucosticta, S. sp. "Redlip" or (S. jurupari "Redlip") and another variant of S. leucosticta, possibly S. cf. leucosticta. I've seen them called "Amazonas Red". Would need better profile shots and a more knowledgeable audience of Satanoperca sp to determine that for sure though. lol

 

[edburress]

S. sp. "Red Lips" do not have opercular spots. Like straitjacketstar said, they are more reminescent of S. jurupari. Those S. leucosticta are similar to mine with the reds, though mine do not have the pinkish tint in their lips/snout. According to Kullander, leucosticta have green spots on a silver/grey cheek. Therefore, the leucosticta that show prominent red, I refer to as S. aff. leucosticta (or sometimes use cf.). "Classic" leucosticta with silver/green are from the Essequibo River in Guyana and the Nickerie Region of Suriname (Kullanders work is based on the Suriname fishes but the Holotype is from Essequibo). leucosticta-type Satanoperca with prominent red and sometimes blue facial spots are from Colombia and Brazil (Rio Xingu).

S. sp. "Red Lips" are from the Rio Araguari and it's tributaries in Brazil. S. jurupari are from Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil, Equador, French Guiana and Peru. Since the red lip variant is confined to a small geographic area, maybe they are indeed a different species from S. jurupari.

The leucosticta-type and jurupari-type fishes will not cross.

HTH,
Ed

 

[DaveB]

The leucosticta-type and jurupari-type fishes will not cross.

This I knew. But what about the two different types of leucosticta? I now have three regular uncolored ones and three with the pink in the fins, which is more pronounced in person than in that photo.


How do you know so much about these fish anyway? You're like an encyclopedia.

 

[edburress]

what about the two different types of leucosticta?

I don't know for sure, but I would assume they would readily cross if mature and conditioned.

How do you know so much about these fish anyway? You're like an encyclopedia.

haha, thanks. Well, I keep a few species, but other than that I collected the original descriptions of most of the Satanoperca, Geophagus, and Gymnogeophagus fishes, and talk to a lot of experienced people. With the Satanoperca specifically, I was interested in studying their phylogenetics in graduate school, so I had to do a lot of reading up on their geopgraphic distributions, existing molecular work, etc. but I didn't end up going that route but still have all of documents I can refer to when I can't remember. Unfortunately, if you get outside of eartheaters, I know almost nothing about other groups

Ed