Not my fish, doing this for someone else (with their permission). I have an opinion, but of course it's getting multiple thoughts on a FB group.
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ryansmith83
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ryansmith83
Heros Id
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It’s either a tank-raised Heros severus or Heros severus hybrid.
The fish has 8 bars and a very, very faint partial half-bar that you can only see in the anal fin. The leopard-like maroon spots on the face, the deepening red color on the chest and shoulder, and the lack of horizontal rows of spots that you’d see on Heros sp. Inirida or Heros sp. Atabapo, points to this being severus.
And of course the body shape with the steep upper body that tapers off into a longer, slender back half.
The fish has 8 bars and a very, very faint partial half-bar that you can only see in the anal fin. The leopard-like maroon spots on the face, the deepening red color on the chest and shoulder, and the lack of horizontal rows of spots that you’d see on Heros sp. Inirida or Heros sp. Atabapo, points to this being severus.
And of course the body shape with the steep upper body that tapers off into a longer, slender back half.
I haven’t seen any proof that casiquiare is not severus. The only difference is that casiquiare have 9 bars instead of 8.5 bars; all other features are the same as severus. But I have bred six wild pairs of severus from three different catch locations and every pair has thrown fry with 8, 8.5, and 9 bars (and lots of those are misbarred like discus tend to be, with crooked, forked, and fused bars or half bars in the wrong place, like say the second or third bar instead of the seventh). So I don’t think bars are as solid of an identifying feature of the species as was originally thought.
Interesting. The 9 bars on casiquiare and the CRC photo Id as a different fish is what I've been going by-- but a location variant of severus does seem possible. The way my mind works, I'd like to see meristic/genetic confirmation before being fully convinced.
To my knowledge there was no DNA testing done on them when Peter Dittrich was writing his book but I could be wrong. I feel like they simply used the physical diagnostic features to distinguish between them. He lists both sp. Casiquiare and sp. Uapes under the severus section of his book. But as you can see from the picture he used, it’s basically severus with nine full bars. I’m betting they’re genetically the same or very closely related.
Excepting the barring, it does look similar, huh?
You can't always tell. Sometimes different looking fish are deemed the same species. Example: both 6 and 7 barred Cyphotilapia in the northern half of Lake Tanganyika were determined to be frontosa after most hobbyists and many cichlid writers, thought they would be separated. Meanwhile, the 6 barred Cyphotilapia in the southern part of the lake was determined to be a separate species, gibberosa, due to scale counts and other subtleties. Takahashi et al did the work on Cyphotilapia, accepted as valid by the taxonomic community, despite Al Konings objections.
Meanwhile, Pacific and Atlantic goliath groupers, long considered to be the same species, were determined to be genetically distinct enough to become two species. Genetic study/molecular taxonomy has produced so many examples of such "cryptic species" that I'm hesitant to draw conclusions until the work is done, not that I haven't had opinions. Some animals, like nudibranchs, appear to have cryptic complexes.
In my opinion it will be interesting when/if they do molecular work on severus, rotkeil, casiquiare, etc. to determine ancestry and potential relationships between them-- not to mention half the other Heros in their various rivers and tributaries.
You can't always tell. Sometimes different looking fish are deemed the same species. Example: both 6 and 7 barred Cyphotilapia in the northern half of Lake Tanganyika were determined to be frontosa after most hobbyists and many cichlid writers, thought they would be separated. Meanwhile, the 6 barred Cyphotilapia in the southern part of the lake was determined to be a separate species, gibberosa, due to scale counts and other subtleties. Takahashi et al did the work on Cyphotilapia, accepted as valid by the taxonomic community, despite Al Konings objections.
Meanwhile, Pacific and Atlantic goliath groupers, long considered to be the same species, were determined to be genetically distinct enough to become two species. Genetic study/molecular taxonomy has produced so many examples of such "cryptic species" that I'm hesitant to draw conclusions until the work is done, not that I haven't had opinions. Some animals, like nudibranchs, appear to have cryptic complexes.
In my opinion it will be interesting when/if they do molecular work on severus, rotkeil, casiquiare, etc. to determine ancestry and potential relationships between them-- not to mention half the other Heros in their various rivers and tributaries.
Look at the photos in the article below, a potential analogy to Heros?
http://museum.dnalc.org/bold/crypticspecies.html
http://museum.dnalc.org/bold/crypticspecies.html