P. melanurus

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Those ARE synspilum!!! Just not anymore apparently.
The two species have been reclassified into one and ~poof~ the familiar name that we all know and love is gone forever!

Now we have to distinguish between the different races of Melanurus......:popcorn:
 
Thanks for the comments.

Just to explain things because i think the up to date nomenclature and systematics of these fish is important to know as to save confusion.

It has long been debated if these fish are one of the same species. The fish in question both show intraspecific variability in coloration. Although a orange form is commonly collected in 'Lago de Peten', there is also a orange coloured synspilus found in central, southern Belize, i believe this fish was shown in Don Conkels book. I believe food sources are the main reason for these interesting colours, but don't quote me on that.;)

P. melanurus (Albert Gunther 1862) seperates P. synspilus (Carl Hubbs 1935) from the caudal bar, horizontal in melanurus and a downward slope in synspilus, hardly a solid trait to seperate two species.

A long overdue study was published recently:

Paraneetroplus synspilus is a Junior Synonym of Paraneetroplus melanurus (Teleostei: Cichlidae)
CALEB D. MCMAHAN, CHRISTOPHER M. MURRAY, AARON D. GEHEBER, CHRISTOPHER D. BOECKMAN & KYLE R. PILLER (USA)

Zootaxa 2833: 1–14 (27 Apr. 2011) Accepted: 9 Mar. 2011

DNA anylasis concludes them to be sister species with very low key differences between them. Morphological comparison between the two fish determins that P. synspilus is a junior synonym of P. melanurus.

The oldest described fish prevails, therefore Paratheraps synspilus is no longer.

I know it will be hard to stop describing synspilus, but for the hobby to progress we must adopt these important re-assignments! I think a lot of people knew this was going to happen sooner or later, even Juan Miguel Artigaz has now updated the CRC database!:)

However i'm still on the fence as to describe these fish under Paraneetroplus. IMO there's still a lot of unaswered questions in that study, plus the paper only concludes a suggested review of the taxa of the species studied.
 
nutty;5146104; said:
Thanks for the comments.

Just to explain things because i think the up to date nomenclature and systematics of these fish is important to know as to save confusion.

It has long been debated if these fish are one of the same species. The fish in question both show intraspecific variability in coloration. Although a orange form is commonly collected in 'Lago de Peten', there is also a orange coloured synspilus found in central, southern Belize, i believe this fish was shown in Don Conkels book. I believe food sources are the main reason for these interesting colours, but don't quote me on that.;)

P. melanurus (Albert Gunther 1862) seperates P. synspilus (Carl Hubbs 1935) from the caudal bar, horizontal in melanurus and a downward slope in synspilus, hardly a solid trait to seperate two species.

A long overdue study was published recently:

Paraneetroplus synspilus is a Junior Synonym of Paraneetroplus melanurus (Teleostei: Cichlidae)
CALEB D. MCMAHAN, CHRISTOPHER M. MURRAY, AARON D. GEHEBER, CHRISTOPHER D. BOECKMAN & KYLE R. PILLER (USA)

Zootaxa 2833: 1–14 (27 Apr. 2011) Accepted: 9 Mar. 2011

DNA anylasis concludes them to be sister species with very low key differences between them. Morphological comparison between the two fish determins that P. synspilus is a junior synonym of P. melanurus.

The oldest described fish prevails, therefore Paratheraps synspilus is no longer.

I know it will be hard to stop describing synspilus, but for the hobby to progress we must adopt these important re-assignments! I think a lot of people knew this was going to happen sooner or later, even Juan Miguel Artigaz has now updated the CRC database!:)

However i'm still on the fence as to describe these fish under Paraneetroplus. IMO there's still a lot of unaswered questions in that study, plus the paper only concludes a suggested review of the taxa of the species studied.
Click to expand...


Thanx to you man and flowerpower and lyc for helping to clear that up for me. I had heard about the re-classification to Paraneetroplus, but not the joining of Melanurus and Synspilus. So thank you all for educating me, I really do appreciate it. Though I personally will probably(almost gauranteed) to continue calling them Vieja. They seem to always be reclassifying these guys and I have a feeling this won't be the last time. Also just like you nutty, I don't even see how they're being classified in Paraneetroplus. It's hard to believe the fish that are already in Paraneetroplus are so closely related to Melanurus(Synspilus) because physically they look so different. Still I know a classification system based on physical symilarities would be a poor system indeed. Lol!:D
 
No problem, hey i'm learning all the time!;)

Calling them Vieja as opposed to Paratheraps is probably more suited, so you probably are correct.

In a paper published a few years ago,

Říčan, O., R.Zardoya & I.Doadrio. 2008. Phylogenetic relationships of Middle American cichlids (Cichlidae, Heroini) based on combined evidence from nuclear genes, mtDNA and morphology. Mol.Phyl.Evol. 49: 941-957

found that, at the time both melanurus and synspila are more related to Vieja (Vieja maculicuda) as opposed to Paratheraps (Paratheraps breidohri)

I still believe that the remaining 6 species and 1 undescribed should be described under Paratheraps, but that just my opinion.

All the best,

Lee.
 
Interesting bit of information there Lee. While it is easy to see a coloration difference between the two, it is also easy to see that that is pretty much as far as it goes. We have syns and mels over here and I can vouch that diet has nothing to do with the coloration difference of the two forms kept here. One can only hope that they have it right because there will be plenty of people mixing the two strains with this new information. Just my2c.
As to your specimens..beautiful.;)
 
At the end of the day, coloration has nothing to do with seperating a species, you've only got to look at all the regional variations that have been discovered, even remembering the spotted variations.

Not all melanurus were orange in the hobby. I used to keep a population from Rio san Pedro, these were almost the same as your classic synspilus apart from the horizontal caudal bar.

Irresponsible owners will always mix the variations together, then you get an aquarium strain, Thats why its always very important to check your sources. It may not matter to mainstream keepers, but to a few who keep the variations pure, will always matter.;)

This was long overdue at least we can safely say that one species has been ticked off.

Now lets describe sp. 'coatzacoalcos'.
 
MTN PIKE;5146608; said:
Lee, do you have any pics when they were young fish?
I will try to post some pictures of mine later, they have different colour than syns.
Thanks again for the nice pictures.
Dan Ye-Jennings
Click to expand...

Yes i have some pictures when young, i'll post them later. Your fish will be the orange population if they are from lake peten. :)

Lee.
 
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