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Here a lot of videos of a pair of Apisto who were sold in a shop here in Belgium. I don't tell the name they were sold for, so that your jugement remain as neutral as possible.
I really don't know what they are. The female shows no flank spot for some reason. The male shows no caudal spot. My guess is that this is a poorly bred A. nijsseni, but only because the male shows no serration on the top of the dorsal fin. The caudal spot is rather large for A. nijsseni, however. Like I write, I don't know because it does not exactly conform to any known species.
They were sold as sp. "Matsès".
Quite sure they aren't! So it doesn't help at all!
Finally I wonder if they are not hybrids.
Actually it was only 1 pair in the shop but a guy dhat I know bought them before I went to the shop... (in january) After all this time without any spawn, he asked me if I was interested by getting them.
I think that he poorly fed them (dry food) so I take the best care I can for them and hope they will spawn.. It could help to undertand WHAT they are.
I keep any hypothesis in mind.
Even the possibility that they could be hybrids... Or unmated...
They really remind me panduro but as you told before there is always one or 2 points that don't match....
I think they are closer of nijsseni that Panduro because Panduro shows a black spot on caudal peduncle and dorsal fin is higher. The female does not resemble at all a woman Panduro. For comparison here are my wild Panduro.
In addition, there are three known forms of Panduro, the A183, A184 and A185
I would say that the fish in question are A. sp. Matses/Nijsseni-New if that is what they were sold as. It is a species very similar in appearance to A. nijsseni. TomC has good photos of this species, which he collected in the Río Galvez (http://apisto.sites.no/page.aspx?pageid=53 - about ¼ of the way down the page). Gabriel should compare his fish to those on Tom's site. The only difference between Matses and Nijsseni-New is presence of vertical caudal fin bands on Matses, but missing on Nijsseni-New. IMHO they are just populations of the same, undescribed species.
BTW, FIL, I don't believe that you have rights to the photos that you copied from the DATZ Book. I suggest that you remove them from your post. Knowing Rainer as I do, he doesn't like people using his photos without permission (or payment!).
BTW, FIL, I don't believe that you have rights to the photos that you copied from the DATZ Book. I suggest that you remove them from your post. Knowing Rainer as I do, he doesn't like people using his photos without permission (or payment!).
Click on "Edit" at the bottom of your post. Then highlight the photo-series, delete and click "save". If you have problems, then I will try to remove it as a moderator.