With the recent discussion about the possibility of a Parachromis fish in another thread being a hybrid, I was wondering if anyone could post either a link or a picture to any other "known" Parachromis hybrids. I've always thought that identifying fish seen in photos as "a dash of this and a splash of that species" much like the cloud game. What you see isn't necessarily the same as the next guy. I am well aware that hybridization of the species does occur...both planned, accidental and in nature. I DON'T believe it as as common as you would believe when you read through some of the various cichlid ID posts.
Natural variation of the species is not only apparent, but more common than you would expect. I don't have the URL, but Willem Heijns made a very interesting post on the Cichlid Room Companion a while back showing the enormous variation in appearance of P. Bifasciatum. I've kept Managuense for close to thirty years. Over that time I have seen fish that had a vast range of color, shape and pattern. My favorite, Jumbo, was fry from a variant of a "regular" manny and a mother that was a gold variant. Different variant....hybrid? The managuense I keep currently from Honduras has an obvious blue coloration along the top of the spine. Collection locale can make a huge impact on the color of the fish. On a recent collecting trip to the Mosquito Coast, a friend of mine collected a manny that was actually GREEN. You only need to take a look at the Carpinte complex to understand this.
The most obvious way to illustrate this is with the P. fredrichsthali that I keep. Here's the F0 fish collected from Rio Escondido, Mexico.
Here's the fish from Rio Danto in Honduras:
A good friend of mine told me he stopped trying to identify fish from pictures on the internet. The task is made more complex with poor photos (lighting, color balance, etc) and the fact that the provenance (where it originated) is never really known.
So...I'm curious and I've been wrong many times before. I know of two pictures that I know for a fact were hybrids. One owned by Mel O'Mera (Managuense/Labiatum) and another that for the life of me I can't remember the common name it was given. Where's the rest?
Natural variation of the species is not only apparent, but more common than you would expect. I don't have the URL, but Willem Heijns made a very interesting post on the Cichlid Room Companion a while back showing the enormous variation in appearance of P. Bifasciatum. I've kept Managuense for close to thirty years. Over that time I have seen fish that had a vast range of color, shape and pattern. My favorite, Jumbo, was fry from a variant of a "regular" manny and a mother that was a gold variant. Different variant....hybrid? The managuense I keep currently from Honduras has an obvious blue coloration along the top of the spine. Collection locale can make a huge impact on the color of the fish. On a recent collecting trip to the Mosquito Coast, a friend of mine collected a manny that was actually GREEN. You only need to take a look at the Carpinte complex to understand this.
The most obvious way to illustrate this is with the P. fredrichsthali that I keep. Here's the F0 fish collected from Rio Escondido, Mexico.
Here's the fish from Rio Danto in Honduras:
A good friend of mine told me he stopped trying to identify fish from pictures on the internet. The task is made more complex with poor photos (lighting, color balance, etc) and the fact that the provenance (where it originated) is never really known.
So...I'm curious and I've been wrong many times before. I know of two pictures that I know for a fact were hybrids. One owned by Mel O'Mera (Managuense/Labiatum) and another that for the life of me I can't remember the common name it was given. Where's the rest?
On a side note, the fish has the spot at the base of the pectorial fin....like a jag or dovii.
