Help with scientific names

[spitz006]

Hello -- I need to bag up a discus for sale, and I'm not sure what to put for the scientific name. Are domesticated discus just referred to as Symphysodon sp. ?

Is that the rule if you don't know the species and only know the genus but want to ID something?

Since it's a line-bred color variation not like how they look in the wild, would I put "Var." afterwards?

Thank you.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

Hello -- I need to bag up a discus for sale, and I'm not sure what to put for the scientific name. Are domesticated discus just referred to as Symphysodon sp. ?

Is that the rule if you don't know the species and only know the genus but want to ID something?

Since it's a line-bred color variation not like how they look in the wild, would I put "Var." afterwards?

Thank you.

If you don't know, just say discus. They're a common species so it's a bit like stressing out over the exact scientific name when selling a golden retreiver.

 

[spitz006]

If you don't know, just say discus. They're a common species so it's a bit like stressing out over the exact scientific name when selling a golden retreiver.

I’m interested in the actual process of scientific naming though. Hoping someone else is too who could give me a rough little breakdown.

 

[L3CTR0N]

Hello -- I need to bag up a discus for sale, and I'm not sure what to put for the scientific name. Are domesticated discus just referred to as Symphysodon sp. ?

Is that the rule if you don't know the species and only know the genus but want to ID something?

Since it's a line-bred color variation not like how they look in the wild, would I put "Var." afterwards?

Thank you.

Pretty sure you can just put Symphysodon sp. 'name of line'.

 

[Hybridfish7]

Symphysodon cf. aequifasciatus var. "blue diamond" for example, if you want to be specific. The var. is optional. It's good that you want to be specific at the level of scientific names, but again like the others said, there's only like 2 maybe 3 species of discus, and only one is domesticated. If you know yours is crossed with a wild line or any other variant for that matter, you specify like "blue diamond x alenquer" or something. People know what discus are, it's the same as things like goldfish or guppies, they're so domesticated that you don't really need to specify the scientific name for people to know what they are.

Just a word of advice if you're trying to sell things. With common fish, people don't always know what the scientific name is, and sometimes get deterred by such since they don't know what the name means, even if it's a common/familiar species. Know your markets. The people buying domesticated fish likely don't know or care about specifics at a species level, and the people who do know/care are probably not buying domestic/line bred fish.

 

[FJB]

Really the "cf" is not needed if there is certainty there is no mix with Heckel discus (Symphysodon discus) in your fish.
The scientific name is simply Symphysodon aequifasciata, as there are only two accepted Discus species-level names (aequifasciata and discus).
"Blue diamond" and any other commercial "names" are not part of the scientific name, and should not be used in the sense of 'varieties'. The latter (varieties) do have some level of relevance at the level of subspecies (for S. aequifasciata ONLY), but are totally separate from the multitude of commercial names.