Parrot or not?

[Rafini]

Howdy guys, at what point does a blood parrot become a short body midevil?
I just picked up a parrot with normal Iris, ordinary head and mouth structure and really nothing typical of a parrot except for a shorter body.

Are these fish parrots outcrossed with Midevils or just a very refined blood parrot?
For comparison here is a typical parrot that I owned several years back

And here is the new parrot, all the fish in the tank exhibited the same morphology and were about 1-2" long

Anyone else have one like this?

 

[BIG-G]

Looks to me like this fish has some form of flowerhorn/ Trimac in its make up.
The spots on the sides and head shape looks Trimac which is a genetic contributor to the flowerhorn.
With these hybrid short bodied fish it’s just about impossible to guess just from looks what the genetic makeup is exactly.
Imo that’s what this fish looks like not the traditional parrot/midevil hybrid

 

[Rafini]

yeah it has that typical Amphilophus face with very little typical parrot morphology.
Could be an attempt to clean up the blood parrot with FH genes, FH's undeniably contain both "Vieja" and "Amphilophus" blood.

It will be interesting to see if the fish turns completely orange.
I was a little confused at the iridescence surrounding the black markings on the body

Another thought occurred to me, is this how King Kong juvies look? I`ve never seen those

 

[BIG-G]

The iridescent rings around the flowers and the pale spangles in the fins and tail as well as the red area below the gill plates are all flowerhorn/ Trimac traits. I just don’t see any typical parrot looks other than the short body.

 

[Rafini]

Hmm interesting, I`ll have to keep an eye on this guy and see if his colors develop into a typical BP or more of a FH style

 

[BIG-G]

I would also be interested in seeing what happens here.
If you can post back to this thread with and update in a few months.
Good luck with it.

 

[Rafini]

Thanks man, I`ll see how things develop. I`ll be sure to update when theres any changes

 

[Aquatic Aggression]

Just a regular parrot with a good mouth. The pre fade pattern is standard BP as well. You can find some like that in every wholesale batch. Walmart actually sells many that look like these with weird conformation. I picked up a yellow one with red eyes, no parrot notch, and a mouth full of teeth once.

Save the short body midevil label for a naturally occurring short body midevil, these fish here we know are hybrids.

 

[Rafini]

I too have had parrots before that were strangely regular in their morphology.
I cant find anywhere what young KKP look like, I know they are line bred parrots mixed with other species to get a better morphology. any chance this is a young king kong?

Snapped a few more pictures, these fish are not particularly outgoing like other parrots I`ve kept. I keep these in a 120g with a bunch of congo tetras, a breeding pair of Steatocranus Casuarius and many of their offspring and 3 juvie green severums. They behave much like Thorichthys and would rather graze the sand than follow me around the room like the many other parrots I've kept (I think about 10 others in total over the years)

Heres a picture of an old parrot I had that had very nice morphology, a nice looking parrot but still very BP features, more of a vieja style mouth, and broken iris.

Heres the fish I have now, which I think is more consistent with a BP mix than just lucky good morphology. Based on behavior, morphology and consistency of features. BP crosses frequently exhibit some fish that look like the other parent, except for a slightly more rotund body shape. I feel like this fish looks more like a nice offspring from a pairing than just a really good parrot (unless its a KKP) I`ll be happy even if its just a really nice looking parrot but with many years of keeping and breeding these fish I feel like this is something different.

Stress bars came out while photographing,

 

[Glenn238]

Very interesting Curious what it will develop into neat looking for sure