What species would you say this Mesonauta is ?

[anewbie]

I have 7 of these - they are much smaller than the ones i have sold as m festivus and unlike the festivus, which i've had for 3 years, these little devils seem to breed every 2 weeks (not sure if is one or two pairs since they all stay together 'cept when breeding); that little devil is guarding eggs now but not sure if they will hatch (I've had them for 4 months - they have grown maybe 1/4 inch - so seem to be a smaller fish). Since the festivus never bred i did not expect these to breed. I should back up and say the m . festivus are wc fishes sold as festivus - for all i know they are a different species.

I've looked at charts that show the different species and the problem is this one has two full bars follow by a fork bar which is not consistent with any of the pictures i've seen.

 

[Mike Wise]

As you have seen, no responses. It is probably because Mesonauta is not considered a dwarf cichlid genus and most here have no experience with the various - and often confused in the hobby - species.

 

[MacZ]

Not like I'm not into other cichlids, but I didn't find a described species that looks like this.
There are at least 3 M, sp. only named by location. But there's a lot of confusion about these and no pictures to be found that are unambiguously labeled.

 

[anewbie]

Not like I'm not into other cichlids, but I didn't find a described species that looks like this.
There are at least 3 M, sp. only named by location. But there's a lot of confusion about these and no pictures to be found that are unambiguously labeled.

Yea. they were sold as columbia m. egregius. So far they appear to be much smaller than the Festivus which are actually quite large. They are also a much 'friendlier' species to date. This might change of course but they are at least sexually mature as they frequently lay eggs.

Oh well who knows what they are - i don't.

 

[Mazan]

I thought the other ones you had were mirificus not festivus?

I am not sure how accurate the drawings are, but it does not look like egregius, not only because of the two bars in front of the spilt bar, but also the diagram shows 5 bars after the split bar and before the tail, yours just has 4.

Maye its an un described species??

 

[anewbie]

I thought the other ones you had were mirificus not festivus?

I am not sure how accurate the drawings are, but it does not look like egregius, not only because of the two bars in front of the spilt bar, but also the diagram shows 5 bars after the split bar and before the tail, yours just has 4.

Maye its an un described species??

Mesonauta mirificus "Festivum" "Peru";

As you can see I often use the nickname (with a few letters missing) rather than the species name - confusing

 

[Mazan]

Ah Ok, well to me any and all of the Mesonauta species are “festivums”…

 

[anewbie]

Ah Ok, well to me any and all of the Mesonauta species are “festivums”…

I guess but to be honest the two species so far show very different behavior from day one. Also the ones sold as mirificus (who knows what they are) have gotten quite large; i'm hopeful this other species will stay a lot smaller - from my reading it was suggested they would which is why i picked them out i'm just not sure they are what they were sold as - they are also generally a lot more colourful - of course breeding doesn't hurt in that aspect. The big surprise (to me) was how they calmed down the b. cupido they are with and the two species seem to get along really well though the b. cupdio might change a bit when they get older. ALso so far breeding has been really quite passive in terms of aggression - they colour up and the other fishes mostly leave them alone. This is somewhat similar to the krobia and much more calm than pretty much any species of apisto i have.

 

[Mazan]

Here is some light reading for you - according to this recent paper, if I understand it correctly (I still have to read it thoroughly) M. insignis and M egregius cannot be distinguished as separate species using molecular analysis, and there are probably more undescribed species.

Couldn't attach the pdf, here is a link:

Phylogenetic systematics of Mesonauta Günther 1862 (Cichliformes: Cichlidae: Cichlinae).

aquadocs.org