Descriptions of "old" unnamed sp.'s?

[HaakonH]

I was going through the Römer book and I came to think of how some well known Dwarf Cichlids are still without a name, when new species are described every year? I mean we have species like Apistogramma sp."Breitbinden" which has been known for over 20 years, why hasn't anyone described it yet? The same goes for A.sp."Rotpunkt", Dicrossus sp."Rio Negro", D.sp."Tapajos", Laetacara sp."Buckelkopf" and L.sp."Orangeflossen". Does anybody know anything about this, is anybody working on these species?

 

[Microman]

I think Apisto SP Rotpunkt was described in 2004 as Apistogramma Alacrina.
( A:106 )

Mark....

 

[tjudy]

I think a lot of it has to to with focus and funding. A taxonomist needs to have a reason to do the work for the naming description. Someone probably has not chosen to focus on these fish yet. I get the impression that a lot of taxonomist interested in new species are out looking for th enew stuff, not necessarily working on the older stuff.

 

[Mike Wise]

Ted hit the nail right on the head. Most ichthyologists are now more interested in relationship studies (phylogeny) than merely naming fish already known. For this purpose, a common name works just as well as a scientific name. It takes a lot of time and money to properly describe a new species.

BTW even Dr. Kullander is not certain that A. alacrina = A. sp. Rotpunkt. He should know if they are the same, because he originally described the Rotpunkt in the hobby literature & scientifically described A. alacrina. Dr. Kullander used specimens from close lying headwaters of both the Amazon & Orinoco for describing A. alacrina. Males of the holotype (Orinoco) are slightly different from males of the paratypes (Amazon). The same appears true for the females. He may have used two populations to describe A. alacrina that belong to two different species. Both alacrina populations show differences with the aquarium forms of Rotpunkt. Without additional studies, we cannot be certain if we are dealing with 1, 2, 3, or more species. For now, I suggest that we all continue to use "Rotpunkt" for the aquarium form.