Mayan & JD habitat video
- Thread starter duanes
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Great pics as usual Duane, I collected cenote azul a few years back I didn't see any melanurus but all the fish you mentioned, my fav was easily the huge humpbacked veliferas males, looking at your video those "melanurus" look like schooling non breeding uro's, I caught some big ones there and one actually broke my rod...
The rocks are very slippery, some are sharp much like Texas holey rock, so I use those cheap neoprean deck shoes, and the cenotes are sometimes a bit of a walk through the forest. Since i don't use fins (they seem to kick up too much debris), I use 1 glove to pull myself slowly along, pretty low tech, and you never know what your going to grab onto. And though the cenotes look still, there is sometimes a current to struggle with that heads down into deep caverns.
Great video but I sure don't see any melanurus. I watched the video over and over and I can't see any cichlid that looks like melanurus. The tail spot and pattern is obvious on all th urophthalmus.
Now that I looked more closely, I think you're right. They look more like sub-dominant 'uropthalmus'. The body shape isn't quite right for melanurus.
It seemed to me the dominant, breeder male uros remained hidden in caves and holes most of the time, I would occasionally see them dart out to either attack or eat, they were dark and monstrous compared to the schooling groups.
Last year in cenote Cristalino the velifera mollies were giant (appeared to reach almost 8"), bright blue, the largest stayed at depths below 10 ft. This year all the large mollies and JDs in that cenote, had disappeared.
I saw a few what I believe were Parachromis friedrichstahlii among hundreds of Astyanax tetras in Car Wash cenote just off hwy 180 west of Tulum, got only a few seconds of video on them, working on the editing, and hope to post it soon.
The most populous cichlid there in "car wash"(at least around the perimeter) were schools of Tilapia, I found that a little weird, as that was the most remote cenote I snorkeled.
Last year in cenote Cristalino the velifera mollies were giant (appeared to reach almost 8"), bright blue, the largest stayed at depths below 10 ft. This year all the large mollies and JDs in that cenote, had disappeared.
I saw a few what I believe were Parachromis friedrichstahlii among hundreds of Astyanax tetras in Car Wash cenote just off hwy 180 west of Tulum, got only a few seconds of video on them, working on the editing, and hope to post it soon.
The most populous cichlid there in "car wash"(at least around the perimeter) were schools of Tilapia, I found that a little weird, as that was the most remote cenote I snorkeled.
Great thread I will be checking back on updates . I would love to go exploring like this some day .
