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Paratilapia sp Andapa

So after looking through some of the Paratilapia, I have to wonder how often other fish end up in the hobby and labeled as Polleni. I've seen some over the year that don't quite look like a Polleni.
 
From a post made in this section in the past, and at this time is probably the most accurate info available.

Paratilapia polleni is a medium sized cichlid fish from Madagascar. It was first described by the Dutch ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker in 1868. In 1882, a second species, P. bleekeri, was described, but it is now known to be a junior synonym of P. polleni. It use to be that one has big spots, the other has small spots. However, currently there is no bleekeri, it has been declared a synonym to polleni, which is the older name. What they are currently going by is population names, all of which are tentatively assigned to Paratilapia polleni for now. There will probably be revisions and new names, but I don't believe the name bleekeri will be resurrected.
Click to expand...



Many vendors, LFS, etc, tend to use older outdated terms & names. The bottom line is of you don't know the collection location, or have some provenance back to a specific collection location in the wild, you might as well consider the fish to be an aquarium strain. This is what I was told recently, and it was solid information. Thanks Duane, and Jose.


Which is why I previously suggested that someone put some of this info together, and a mod make that info a sticky at the top of this section. From what I can gather, the vast majority of hobbyists (including myself recently) don't really know what they have purchased, or are breeding. Over time this not only adds to the confusion, but further screws up the genetic make up of these various geographical variants/species. In my case I'm not breeding my fish, I'm keeping a lone male, but for those that are many will have no idea as to exactly what they have - which is where the "big spot" "small spot" comes in. I recently asked the same thing about my male.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?568639-Large-Spot-or-Small-Spot


HTH
 
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