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Laetacara dorsigera vs. curviceps

decal

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Hello all,

What are the distinguishing features of Laetacara dorsigera in contrast to L. curviceps? I have read that L. dorsigera is generally more common in the US since it is more easily farmed outdoors than the latter, and that they are often mislabeled as L. curviceps. For example, the fish shown here (http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwcichlids&1340218098) look much like the L. dorsigera I see online. What do you all think?

Thank you,

Daniel
 

dw1305

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Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
I think that L. dorsigera has obvious vertical bars on the caudal peduncle that L. curviceps doesn't, and is a chunkier fish all around. Having said that I've probably never actually seen L. curviceps, just the blue form of L. dorsigera and Laetacara araguaiae (formerly L. "Buckelkopf")

Have a look a this thread for some more details: <http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/laetacara-curviceps.9759/>

cheers Darrel
 

Adoketa

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Dorsigera has the maroon/liver red coloration on the lower half of the jaw, towards the belly once it is stable. Curviceps has a greenish/yellowish hue throughout the body. I may be wrong, but that's the conclusion i got from keeping the two (bear in mind the ID might not be correct because i got them from shops as well).
 

Mike Wise

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I wish it were that simple. L. dorsigera has several color morphs, including a black morph with no maroon color - and a blue morph (maybe a separate species?) that appears much like L. curviceps. I tend to look as body shape and barring on the caudal peduncle when trying to decide which species is which.
 

gerald

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The Wet Spot pic on aquabid looks like the typical maroon form of dorsigera. The "curviceps" I had in the 1980's looked just like Briztoon's curviceps here: http://www.apistogramma.com/forum/index.php?threads/laetacara-curviceps.9759/ with these features:
1) BLUE iridescence on the sides (not gold-green to blue-green as in dorsiger),
2) red blotches along the "shoulder" above and interspersed with the dark lateral band,
3) little or no maroon or black on the throat/chest (much more in dorsiger)
4) white edge on rear half of dorsal (red to yellow edge in dorsiger).
Mine even got the same jaw deterioration disease that Briztoon's pix show. If this is not the real curviceps, then are all those "curviceps" pix in the old cichlid books and mags of the 1960s-1980s (Goldstein and others) not really curviceps?
 

Mike Wise

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These species are polychromatic. Color is not the best diagnostic feature. One is better off using body shape and black body markings. L. dorsigera and L. curviceps were re-described recently (last year?). I will try to find the reference. The authors primarily used preserved specimens, so color wasn't an important diagnostic feature.
 

gerald

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Someday (soon I hope) reputable journals will stop accepting species descriptions that lack live color descriptions. Yes, color can certainly be highly variable between individuals within a species, but so can body shape, preserved color (melanin), scale and fin ray counts, etc. Live color is no less valuable than these features, but scientists have a bias against it simply due to history: before field photography the museum taxonomists rarely saw live colors. Malawi cichlids are a great example of the importance of color in distinguishing species by the fishes themselves; there's a bunch of "species" (whatever that word means) distinguishable by color that classical taxonomists failed to recognize using meristics and preserved color. In many cases DNA is now confirming what field biologists and aquarists suspected (based on live color) and the fish already knew were "cryptic species" (not previously recognized by taxonomists). I suspect the same is true of many S.Amer and C.Amer cichlids.

quote="Mike Wise, post: 69307, member: 701"] These species are polychromatic. Color is not the best diagnostic feature. One is better off using body shape and black body markings. L. dorsigera and L. curviceps were re-described recently (last year?). I will try to find the reference. The authors primarily used preserved specimens, so color wasn't an important diagnostic feature.[/quote]
 

Mike Wise

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The value of color varies with the genus or species being studied. For polychromatic species, color is not especially useful. For species that are not polychromatic, it can be a useful tool. Don't expect changes in descriptions anytime soon. Most species are still described from specimens preserved on site. Sure color photos can be taken, but how accurate are the colors when the fish are stressed from just being collected? Most competent taxonomists will not describe a species from fish that have been brought back alive. Too many physical changes occur once they are kept for any time in an aquarium. I personally think that the lack of a suitable sample size is more of a problem with the description of a species than color. Too many species have been described from a statistically insignificant number of specimens. Besides, ichthyologists are not really interested in describing species for the sake of describing a new species. They more interested in comparing their fish with reference specimens collected years ago that have no color at all.
 

hedylogus

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without DNA testing, how do we really differentiate between polychromatism and "cryptic species"? sounds like a good thesis paper to me!
 

Mike Wise

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DNA is becoming very common in taxonomy these days because it is becoming more inexpensive. It has the same problems as physical taxonomy, however. What criteria does one use to separate species? DNA researchers can also be either 'lumpers' or 'splitters'. Right now there are differences of opinions about some of the Central American heroine genera because of this.
 

gerald

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I'm straying way off topic now, but it's always amazed me how little color variation there is in insects, especially butterflies and moths, as compared with cichlids and other highly color-variable fish. Take a sample of buckeye butterflies or cecropia moths from throughout their range and every one is a very close match to the field guide picture. (yes there is variation in those that mimic bad-tasting species, but it is fairly predictable and uniform). Why do they have so little visible variation, while fish (with much better vision than bugs) have so much ?
 

Mike Wise

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I don't know, maybe it's because most insects can fly and are more mobile. Populations could more easily cross faunal boundaries, mix, and produce a more uniform species - something that is more difficult for small fish like apistos.
 

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