gephyra or agassizii?

[Melanochromis]

Hope I haven't bored anyone with the gephyra vs. agassizii posts yet. But the fish I posted in my earlier thread months ago have grown considerably. Hopefully, with the most recent picture this time it may be easier to ID the species . Here you are:

And here are some older picture of probably the same fish when it was younger (there were 2 of them that looked very similar). You can see that it had developed some pattern on the caudal fin, while the dorsal had become longer and shown a red edge.

Interestingly, I found other people who own similar fish that came in the same batch. Perhaps they are all the same species, either gephyra or agassizii. Here's a picture of one of them.

Now, the usual question - are they likely gephyra or agassizii?

 

[HaakonH]

I think it's hard to say in this case. These fish do have the red edge on the dorsal fin that gephyra has, but even agassizii can have this. The caudal fin is not very spade-shaped, which again points to gephyra. Also the blue sheen on the body is not very prominent, which is usually the case with agassizii. The dark markings on these fish don't tell me much either. I like the caudal fin on that last one, very nice pattern. I'm leaning towards gephyra here, but let's hear it from Mike!

Haakon

 

[FIL]

Hello,

Personally, I tend to say that the first photo is a gephyra because the lips are thicker than a agassizii but this remains unconfirmed.

[edit] Upon reflection, there are also agassizii with lips thick. In short, it's very complicated to identify a gephyra in comparison with a agassizii.

Nicolas

 

[Mike Wise]

Well, I believe that the top photo is A. gephyra. Caudal fin pattern is right. Moreover, what make me think that it is A. gephyra is that it shows no scaling on the abdomen, typical of A. gephyra. The bottom fish is a beautiful form of A. cf. agassizii (Netz/Net), probably from the Rio Negro. It shows a scaled abdomen typical of A. agassizii. The Rio Negro population does not show the net-like pattern as distinctly as other populations in tributaries farther down the Amazon. Could they have come from the same collecting site? Probably not. There are no reports of A. gephyra and A. agassizii being sympatric. Could they have come in the same import? Yes, they could. They probably were mixed together from nearby rivers by the collector before being shipped to the export station.

 

[Melanochromis]

Thanks very much for everyone's reply. It's nice to know I've got a gephyra, which is not common where I am. It's also interesting to know the other fish (in the last pic) isn't the same species.

 

[Gwendal]

Great fish, could be a A. gephyra as people say.







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