A while back I posted that I was working on a guide for the hobbyist to identify the twelve species within the genus Cichlasoma. I intended to post the guide all at once but as it has not been easy to locate some species, I've now decided to do it one species at a time. The guide is not intended to be a scientific description of each species but as a layman's way to try to identify the Cichlasoma you may have swimming in your tank. Most of the work is based on S. Kullander's original and redescriptions of the species and on my own personal experience with these fish.
Knowing where a particular fish was caught and exported from would be the most useful factor in determing it's species, but as most are imported without locality data, I'm hoping this guide will be of some use to those wanting to know what fish they have. There is no one trait that will distinguish a particular species. You have to rely on a combination of several different characters in order to be able to tell the species apart.
The first species I'll start with is Cichlasoma boliviense. This one is not too hard to seperate from the other eleven species.
The combination of characters that distinguish Cichlasoma boliviense are -
A. 3 hard spines in the anal fin (as opposed to 4 or more that occur in 6 of 12 known species)
B. A caudal fin that has many small spots both on the upper and lower lobes of the fin (as opposed to large spots throughout the fin, small spots only on the lower half, or no spots at all)
C. Thin (as opposed to thick) to non existing black edging to the posterior edge of the scales on the head and anterior portion of the body.
D. Black spots on the scales of the posterior portion of the body.
Knowing where a particular fish was caught and exported from would be the most useful factor in determing it's species, but as most are imported without locality data, I'm hoping this guide will be of some use to those wanting to know what fish they have. There is no one trait that will distinguish a particular species. You have to rely on a combination of several different characters in order to be able to tell the species apart.
The first species I'll start with is Cichlasoma boliviense. This one is not too hard to seperate from the other eleven species.
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The combination of characters that distinguish Cichlasoma boliviense are -
A. 3 hard spines in the anal fin (as opposed to 4 or more that occur in 6 of 12 known species)
B. A caudal fin that has many small spots both on the upper and lower lobes of the fin (as opposed to large spots throughout the fin, small spots only on the lower half, or no spots at all)
C. Thin (as opposed to thick) to non existing black edging to the posterior edge of the scales on the head and anterior portion of the body.
D. Black spots on the scales of the posterior portion of the body.