A. sp. Nanay

[Mike Wise]

I look on aquabid every once in a while, looking for something interesting. I saw someone was offering "A. sp. Nanay". I'm looking for a couple of female A. sp. Papagei/Nanay for my lonely male, so I looked up the photo: http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?fwapisto&1268752202. Well I was kind of surprised. They weren't A. sp. Papagei/Nanay nor A. sp. Nanay/Melgar. They sure look like A. sp. Roca Eterna to me. Just a FYI.

 

[czarteros]

How you distinguish them from A. sp. Pebas? I think I see pale spots on the male tail. Does not it matter?

 

[Mike Wise]

Compare the shape of the male's tail. On Roca Eterna the tail is more squared off while it is more round on Papagei/Nany. The caudal patch on Roca Etena looks intermediate between that of A. sp. Pebas and Papagei. If this was the only feature, I would wonder if Roca Eterna was just a population of Papagei from a different river system. Females of both forms show a similar double caudal patch (∞). The brood dress of Roca Eternal females, however, is noticeably different from Papagei. Roca Eterna females show 4-5 flank spots (more like A. sp. Pebas) while Papagei females rarely show more than 2 in brood dress.

I can't say positively that Roca Eterna and Papagei are separate species any more than I can be positive that Papagei are Pebas are separate species. All that I can say is that they very well could be. They are distinct enough that I wouldn't want to breed the 2 forms together.