Severum id

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They may get be red spotted greens but they look like H Curare Severum to me.
ryansmith83 ryansmith83
 
Calling them "wild greens'' is basically meaningless, the closest fish to that name is not a wild fish at all, but the tank bred, mixed heritage "green severums" that have been in the hobby forever.

I'll let ryansmith83 confirm what they are if he finds this thread, since he's had Heros severus and I haven't yet, but they do have the dark edges on the pelvic fins (and to some degree on the anal fin) and some have the half 7th bar, all typical of the Heros severus I've seen, which is the correct taxonomic name for what some used to call "sp. Curare," an outdated name now that they've been formally described-- same as what some call red tiger.
 
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IMO they are Heros sp. Inirida because they have spots on the flanks in between the vertical stress bars. In juvenile H. severus there are spots organized in vertical columns where the stress bars overlap them, but there are no spots in between the bars as these fish show.

True Heros severus have no black body markings other than the vertical bars.

It’s very possible that juvenile fish grow out of the spots and develop the red neck which would make them severus. It’s also very possible that you have a mix of both types because some (like the black-freckled fish with the yellow gillplates) look more characteristically like Inirida and some (like the last fish) look more like severus. They are sometimes imported together and the wild juveniles are often confused for each other.
 
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This also looks like H. sp. Inirida to me. uniform rows of spots are what give me that ID.
Both species are super similar and are collected together. it would not surprise me in a few years down the road to find out they are synonyms of each other.
I thought of that briefly, but was distracted by the ones with 9 (8.5) bars and goofed and forgot to count the (8) bars on the top two photos without the extra half bar. I've seen some say they're the same fish; I don't know, before being convinced I'm waiting on the taxonomists to figure that one out. :)
 
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