Picked up these Rio Pisco Andinoacara stalsbergi today. Male and female.
My "True" GREEN TERRORS (Andinoacara Stalsbergi)
- Thread starter Cyberman
- Start date
This comes up often...
Stalsbergi as the 'true' or 'original' green terror is a misconception.
The basic order is: White edged rivulatus (Ecuador) showed up in the hobby first in the 1970s. Soon, also 1970s, came wild collected gold edged rivulatus. These were given the nickname "green terror" --the question at the time was: Are they rivulatus? Meanwhile there were also photos of what are now stalsbergi circulating. 1982-- a German article called what we now call stalsbergi (Peru) 'the green terror that isn't', being a third fish different from the those originally given the nickname 'green terror' (the Ecuador white and gold edged fish). So, the question for some became is this the true rivulatus?
---Source: Here, article by Wayne Leibel, biologist and cichlid expert who has written more than one article to clear up the confusion.
S0-- one reason so many have it wrong is at one time stalsbergi was considered the true rivulatus-- not the same thing as the true green terror. In fact, some older books and articles (some of which I have or had) had photos of the Peruvian fish (stalsbergi) captioned as the "true rivulatus" and from this a number of hobbyists concluded and spread the idea it was also the true green terror (which, based on this, I also started to think at one point). BUT-- the Peruvian fish turned out not to be rivulatus, so it's been named stalsbergi. The Ecuador fish is rivulatus.
There's also another similar, reportedly slightly smaller, fish from Ecuador: Andinoacara blombergi.
Imo I don't have an issue with calling stalsbergi green terrors also. It's just a nickname and, according to sources I've seen, some countries don't call any of them green terrors. But it would be more accurate to call stalsbergi Peru green terrors if you want to distinguish them from rivulatus, not the 'original' or the 'true' green terror.
I don't mind calling them Peruvian Green Terrors... I suppose people addressing them as "True Green Terrors" is a way of them making out that they are in some way more special then Rivulatus... Appealing to Cichlid keepers egos of - I got the better rarer fish lol
Yeah, pretty much imo, same can be said for people selling them, but it's also what a lot of people have heard, which makes it confusing. At one point I had the basic idea, but it took reading the Wayne Leibel articles (he's done more than one on the subject) before I connected all the dots and could explain it clearly.
Calling them "Peruvian green terrors' is just my opinion of a qualifier that would distinguish them accurately, nothing official about that either. For me calling them stalsbergi works as well as anything. As far as special, whatever you call them, they're a lot less common than rivulatus.
...Also, yours look good, especially the male.
Big thanks to Rob Johnson for importing these and the many other amzing fish he makes available to us American Cichlid enthusiasts in the UK