Taxonomic Differences between Vieja and Paratheraps

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frazzlerock5

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Jun 19, 2008
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Does anyone know the defining characteristics that separate the genera Vieja and Paratheraps? I often confuse these two, as I'm sure a lot of other people do too. Maybe we can get a list going of many of the accurate Vieja/Paratheraps species with their correct genus.

This is what I gathered from TUIC, I presume that Rapps is correct.

Paratheraps fenestratus

Vieja argentea
Vieja heterospilus
Vieja maculicauda
Vieja melanurus
Vieja regani
Vieja synspilus
 
I believe it has to do with the varying degrees in fusion of the cichlid pharyngeal jaw, for diet specialization.

Vieja contains argentea, heterospila, maculicauda, regani, and ufermanni.

Paratheraps contains bifasciatus, breidohri, fenestratus, guttulatus, hartwegi, melanurus, synspilus, and zonatus.
 
Modest_Man;3823682; said:
I believe it has to do with the varying degrees in fusion of the cichlid pharyngeal jaw, for diet specialization.

Vieja contains argentea, heterospila, maculicauda, regani, and ufermanni.

Paratheraps contains bifasciatus, breidohri, fenestratus, guttulatus, hartwegi, melanurus, synspilus, and zonatus.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the info modest man. I did a little googling of this topic and found some really good information that might clear things up a little bit for all of us.

I found this on www.cichlidae.com's forum. This was posted last August by Willem Heijns:

"Your question is about the status of three cichlid generic names: Vieja, Theraps and Paratheraps.

All three names are available, which means that they have been described according to the rules set by the ICZN. Whether these names stand for valid genera depends on the species assigned to them as type species. If a proposed type species really belongs to another genus described earlier, than it would bear the name of that other genus. Take breidohri. This species was designated as type species of Paratheraps by Werner & Stawikowski. If breidohri should be assigned to another genus with an older name than Paratheraps, than the name Paratheraps would become a junior synonym of that older name and therewith invalid.
As it stands now, all three generic names in question are valid, because none of their type species is thought to belong to another genus with an older name. So we have three valid names already:
Vieja maculicauda,
Theraps irregularis,
Paratheraps breidohri.

Now which other species should be assigned to our three genera? There are no ICZN rules for that. It's all a matter of opinion. If you think a species belongs to one of those genera than you simply say so. But I would always ask you why you believe that to be right. Many hobbyists fail to answer such a question, I hate to say.
A widely accepted practice among taxonomists nowadays is to try and define genera as natural groups. A natural group consists of species sharing a common ancestor. In other words: if the members of a group of species are more closely related to each other than either of them is to another genus, they should be grouped into a genus of their own.
So your question really is: how are all these species related? Many studies have been undertaken in this respect. Most of them suffered from a (too) small taxon sampling (if you study only ten species you can only say something about those ten) and/or a bad choice of characters to look at (one gene doesn't tell the whole story).

But there is hope. Last year a paper was published that contained almost all Central American heroine cichlids and also was based on no less than three DNA markers as well as 81 morphological characters. The best I have seen yet. I reviewed this paper in Cichlid News (July 2009) and this review will soon appear on this this site as well. But if you want to go to the source, try this:

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

As for the three genera in question, the results of this study are:

Vieja:
maculicauda, melanura, synspila

Theraps:
irregularis, coeruleus, godmani, intermedius, lentiginosus, microphthalmus, nourisatti

Paratheraps:
breidohri, bifasciatus, fenestratus, guttulatus, hartwegi, zonatus.

Note the endings of the specific names. They change according to the gender of the generic name. Vieja is feminine, Theraps and Paratheraps are masculine."

Again, this was posted by Willem Heijns on cichlidae.com, just so we're clear. Here is a link to the full thread if you are interested.

http://www.cichlidae.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6926
 
The reference to the gender based suffix of each name should be required reading.

It drives me crazy when no one gets that right.......almost as much as when people capitalize species names!

(My high school latin teacher would be proud!)
 
Hmm... I guess no one else was as confused about this topic as I was
 
im still confused. I guess a lot of people are getting it wrong. alot of people are putting every thing under vieja.
Ive seen vieja bifa, vieja hartwgi, vieja yomama....
 
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