Identification for wildcaught Apisto.

[Giorgos]

Hello to the board.
As of May 2003 I have been housing a group of wildcaught Apistogramma (collected in Brazil) which have been giving me a hard time identifying them. At the time one of the females is preparing her third spawn.
After some researching and studying (during the little free time that remains) I cannot say that I've positively identified them and am between three or four species (which I'm not going to mention for the post's sake ) that resemble my Apistos except for a few details.
Eventhough I am almost 100% sure on one of the candidates, I would like to hear your opinions.

Here are some photos:

Female with fry.
http://www.cichlides.com/forum/files/femalevins.jpg

Male.
http://www.cichlides.com/forum/files/male1c.jpg
http://www.cichlides.com/forum/files/male1b.jpg

This is a different species which unfortunately has no mate.
http://www.cichlides.com/forum/files/unknown2.jpg

Thanks in advance.

 

[LyreTail]

Other people are better at this than me - but the pair look a little like A. cruzi - the picture is dark though of the male. but the female looks just like the picture in Dr Uwe Romer's book of a cruzi. I had mistaken my fish for a cruzi, so that is why it stood out for me. Mine are actually A sp "Papagei"

I am sorry - the last photo, I do not know what it is

 

[Fisherking]

I don't think they are cruzi, I cant see any paralell stripes and the caudal spot dont match. And they usualy come from Peru. My guess is somthing close to regani.

 

[Neil]

I tend to agree with Fisherking. Looks like regani to me to. Might be ortmanni, but the caudal spot seems a little too long. Maybe Mike has an idea.

Neil

 

[Mike Wise]

Yes, I agree, they look like A. regani from what I can see: broad vertical bars with narrow pale interstitial areas, a caudal spot that covers the entire height of the caudal peduncle, and lack of red markings on the face of the male point to this species. The anal spot, typical of this species is visible on the photo of the brooding female, whose brood pattern matches that of A. regani.

As for the other fish, I would need more & better photos for an reasonable identification. The fish does not appear to have a lateral spot, so it is a member of the regani-lineage (regani-, macmasteri-, Rotpunkt-groups, A. borellii, & Apistogrammoides). Other than that I cannot say.

 

[Giorgos]

Sorry for taking so long to reply but work has gotten the better part of me lately.

First of all, thank you all for your quick replies.
I will probably have to agree with LyreTail on the id of the pair eventhough they do have most of the characteristics that A. regani has.
Here are a few more photos that should help:
Male:
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/unidmale05.jpg
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/unidmale03.jpg
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/unidmale09.jpg
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/unidmale10.jpg
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/unidmale06.jpg
In these pictures you can clearly see the red markings on his face, the dark parallel stripes on the lower part of his body and a few irridecent dots on the top third of his body just above the 5 dark "blotches" on the middle section of his body. The caudal spot is long and covers the entire width of the caudal peduncle.

Female:
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/unidfem1.jpg
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/PA280033.jpg

Pair:
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/unidmale02.jpg
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/unidmale08.jpg

Fry (~1 week old):
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/PA280049.jpg

The different species which has no mate. Any clues?
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/otherap1.jpg
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/otherap2.jpg
http://studio.aaquaria.com/apistos/otherap3.jpg

Thanks again,
George

 

[Tea]

id

Hello there the new pics. of your male looks very much like a apistgramma apache male. Your male looks very similar to my mine. maybe some one else can positvely id.

 

[Peter Lovett1]

I agree apache and a nice one at that

 

[Mike Wise]

I "sort of" agree. It probably is A. sp. Masken/Masked/Apache/Peru(2)/Carapintada (in part) /"A.cruzi" (common misidentification). Your fish, however, do not fully match the dark markings found on A. sp. Masked. The bands on the tail are darker & cover more of the tail than is typical of the Masked Apisto. The caudal spot (almost a stripe on your fish) bows very slightly toward the front. This is more than on A. regani (virtually straight) and less than on A. sp. Masked (bows out about ½ scale width). The abdominal stripes are much more pronounced on your fish than on Masked, especially on displaying males. The facial markings and diagonal bars on the flanks are definitely similar to those of A. sp. Masked. All of the features seem to point to a slightly different population of the Masked Apisto.

The problem is that your female shows an anal spot (black patch in front of the anal fin). I have never seen this marking on the Masked Apisto, but it is typical of A. regani. Additionally, the Masked Apisto occurs only in Peru around the city of Nauta along the lower Rio Ucayali. You say that your fish came from Brazil. They might have actually come from Peru, however. Fish are traded between countries.

One other option could be that you somehow received A. cf. sp. Masked (Juruá) a species very similar to Masked that comes from the Rio Juruá around the town of Eirunepé in western Brazil. Little is known about this fish, which comes from an area not commercially collected. I only have 1 photo of this fish, but the tail markings and prominent abdominal stripes are similar to your fish. I do not know what the female looks like.

Please, can you tell me what other fish you received with this fish & under what name they were sold?

 

[Giorgos]

The fish were not purchased. They were actually a gift from the president of the French Cichlid Association, Mr Antoine Seva and since they were fry, he didn't know what species they were.
After a few queries I found out that some of the fish were collected from Brazil and some from Peru. I cannot find out from which rivers or town though. Nor can I find out which species were collected from Brazil and which from Peru.

I also received this Apistogramma species with the unidentified Apistos:
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/otherap1.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/otherap2.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/otherap3.jpg

The url in my previous posts has changed. This is the new url:
http://www.cichlides.com/forum/files/femalevins.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/unidfem1.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/PA280033.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/unidmale05.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/unidmale03.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/unidmale09.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/unidmale10.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/unidmale06.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/unidmale02.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/unidmale08.jpg
http://www.greekaquarist.com/apistos/PA280049.jpg

Along with these two species I also received a third. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures of them. They are now housed in a friend's aquarium. He tell's me that they look much like A. agassizzi. I know that some photos would help.

 

[mummymonkey]

I'm not seeing the pictures.

 

[Mike Wise]

studio.aaquaria.com refuses to let me access the site, so I cannot add anything to my previous statemens. The female with fry on cichlides.com appears to be A. sp. Masked, or something closely related to it. Regani-group females can be hard to differentiate.

 

[Giorgos]

Sorry about the wrong url. I edited my previous post and corrected it.