Issue # 2
The elusive Nautla cichlid
Herichthys deppii Paratheraps & Vieja Taxonomy, species & name assigning
Plus much more
1
Hello and welcome to the new printed edition of issue 2. First I would like to thank everyone who has supported this new venture by purchasing a copy, this has enabled me to gather enough funds to get issue 2 into print and hopefully with your help, we can get issue 3 and so on. Issue 2 kicks off a little different to the digital version, as we start with an article about Herichthys deppii. This is a fantastic medium sized cichlid to keep, which unfortunately is once again becoming a little scarce. Plus we have recently seen worrying reports to the echo system of the Misantla River and the damage that is happening. Most of this issue will be focusing on the Paratheraps and Vieja complex or is that Paraneetroplus ? I won’t get into the debate of name assigning as much of it is still based on opinions. many seem to think that the Paratheraps and Vieja complex has finally been resolved, but this is simply not true. Therefore I will still use both available names , until the issue is finally put to bed! I would like to thank Willem Heijns for contributing a fascinating article explaining the complexities of name assigning for the Paratheraps and Vieja genus. This article will hopefully answer or maybe ask a few questions? Saludos, Lee Nuttall Advertising Rates Full Page £80.00 Half Page £40.00 Notes for Contributors If you would like to contribute an article or submit any photography work, then please send all work to the editor of The Central Scene at the following email address: centralscenemagazine@talktalk.net Text can be submitted in email draft or sent in Microsoft word doc. All illustrations, drawings and photography work, should be sent separately in high resolution format (jpeg, tiff) and original size if possible. Photographic contributions without text are also welcome. When sending photographic work, Please do not send with a water mark, as authors and photographers are always credited. Articles and images published in the Central Scene remain the intellectual property of the original author, photographer, illustrator, and any work published may not be reprinted without the contributor’s written permission. 2
Contents 4
Herichthys deppii Introducing the elusive Nautla cichlid
15
Big, Bold & Colourful A guide to the Paratheraps and Vieja complex
22
Paratheraps or Vieja? Willem Heijns explains the complexities of name assigning
28
Paratheraps sp. ‘Coatzacoalcos’ A number not a name...
38
Cichlid Profile Vieja argentea
The views expressed in Central Scene are those of the individual(s) concerned and not necessarily those of the Editor. While every attempt has been made to ensure accuracy, the Editor and its contributors disclaim all liability for any loss, injury or other problem arising from the use of information contained herein. The Central Scene © copyright of Lee Nuttall 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any information retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without the express permission of the copyright holders.
3
4
Introduction Herichthys deppii has been a rather overlooked species in its time. Originally discovered by Ferdinand Deppe around 1829 and described by Johann J. Heckel as Heros deppii, there appears to have been some confusion over its described status. Perhaps it’s because the fish never really had much commercial success, that certainly it had been over looked and almost forgotten. “Aqualog South American Cichlids book 3”, has two colour photos and the fish listed as Herichthys sp. “Rio Nautla”. Strange that the book didn’t list the accepted nomenclature Herichthys deppii. Renewed interest of this cichlid was when Eric Hanneman and party set out to Rio Nautla in search of the elusive fish, this was early 2000. Successful in their pursuit, Eric managed to bring a small group of deppii back and spawn the fish. Again in around 2007/2008, Rusty Wessel and Juan Miguel Artigas set out, photographed and collected specimens for the aquarium hobby. The fish were spawned and then F1 offspring were made available to fish keepers in the UK. As of the current status of deppii stocks, that’s where the story begins.
Rio Misantla, Mexio
5
Photo © Fransisco Gutierrez Franco
Pair bonding can sometimes get a little rough!
The blue colouration will intensify when H. deppii start spawning
6
The Female will start to remove the wrigglers into nursery pits
circle each other. The colour of the fish should start to change a little with intense blue and a darker barring region on the body. A suitable spawning site will be excavated and eggs will be deposited on either a cleaned up rock or cave structures like a flower pot. H. deppii can produce large amounts of eggs of up to several hundred. Any unfertilized will be quickly picked out and eaten, as not to cause any bacterial infections to the surrounding fertilized eggs. At around 3 days the eggs will start hatching, so the parents will quickly pick out the wrigglers and move them to a nursery pit away from the spawning site. On day 5 the wrigglers became free swimming. At this stage the colour of the parents really intensifies and they become different looking fish. The head and front half becomes a very light mint coloured blue, with the other half very dark blue with black barring. Also they develop a black throat region with darker lips. Eyes become a bright orange colour.
7
A once beautiful flowing River, home to Herichthys deppii; now looks like a dried up shadow of it’s former self! Government projects to construct water treatment plants are for some reason stuck in limbo, resulting in the damage to the Misantla river environment.
Photos: Eduardo GonzĂĄlez & Fransico Gutierrez Franco
While many hobbyist worry about name assigning, perhaps the bigger picture for the hobby is to worry about our favourite cichlids habitat and if they will still be with us in the future?! 8
A Guide to Paratheraps & Vieja
in Vieja but should be lumped and reassigned to the Paraneetroplus complex? We have also since learned that everyone’s favourite, Vieja synspila is no longer a valid name and has now become a junior synonym of a much older described fish Vieja melanura. Is it any wonder that the internet and forums alike are full of articles and posts with confusion of wrong names and misidentifications? For many, name assigning is usually based on opinion, but there are rules and guidelines to be followed, so for the benefit of the article all cichlids discussed are currently assigned to both Paratheraps and Vieja.
Paratheraps / Vieja consists of one of the largest complexes in the Central American family tree. The taxonomy history has and still is a challenge, as many other species described within the complex has since been split and reassigned to other genera. Three species make up Chuco and one species left in the pending category of ‘exCichlasoma’. Recent taxonomy papers now tell us that these fish are no longer 9
Full grown adults are deep bodied powerful fish and need space, failing to give them this respect could be a recipe for disaster! A small group of juveniles or semi- adult fish can be brought up in smaller aquariums, but larger tanks will be needed if you plan to keep these cichlids long term. Decorate the tank using rocks driftwood and sand gravel mix. Plants will more than likely be up rooted or eaten, so not a particularly good idea to add them, however, I have had some success with floating plants, mainly using Ceratophylum. sp (Hornwort). Water quality should be kept in check, but as a rule, water should be hard/ medium hardness, a pH range between 7-8 and temperature between 24 – 28 c. Vieja’s are large messy fish, so a large biological filtration system will be needed to cope. Regular water changes are a no brainer and should be part of any regular maintenance routine of any sort of fish tank.
Buy from a reputable dealer or breeder, where you can see the parents of the fish. Specialised importers are the best place to go when dealing with these fish as many will buy their stock from reputable breeders and stockist. If your goal is to keep a large tank with a community of these different fish, then perhaps species purity may not be a priority, so by all means buy these possible hybrids. Aquarium care Many of the species from the complex are large and can easily attain sizes up to 30cm in the confines of the aquarium; therefore we need to be thinking large tanks of at least 200cm x 60 x 60 cm, community setups should perhaps be even larger. You may think I’m being over generous with the sizes quoted, but from experience fully grown adult fish or pairs need plenty of space for spawning or any territorial issues.
Vieja maculicauda is the type specimen for the genus Vieja and also has the widest distribution range
10
When it comes to feeding Paratheraps / Vieja , they’re usually regarded as either detritovores or herbivores in the nature, but many will accept commercial or prepared foods. Stay clear of higher protein mammalian foods, instead opting for shell fish or white worm, but only feeding as a regular treat. The main diet should be a staple dried sinking/ floating pellets and occasionally fresh vegetables like lettuce or spinach. If fresh vegetables aren’t suitable, then supplement with a spirulina based flake or pellet food.
the challenge is to find a bonded compatible pair. There are two ways doing this, either by obtaining a proven pair or by raising a group of juvenile fish. The latter is perhaps the easiest and most rewarding process as you the aquarist buys a small group of juveniles hoping to get a pairing from the group. Raising a small group will usually develop a bonded pair well before they reach full size, many members of the Paratheraps / Vieja group can spawn very early in their development. Spawning these fish is a responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Many aquarium stocks are either mixed species or very poor aquarium strains. If possible obtain good pure stock and please don’t hybridise with different species or even different populations. As you can see from the many photo included in the article, good quality stock, properly cared for look amazing, it baffles me why hobbyists want mix them!
Spawning From what I know Paratheraps and Vieja are open substrate spawners and will choose, clean and prepare a flat or angled rock, even the bare bottom of the glass tank. They are also known to spawn inside cave structures such as upturned flower pots. Once a pair has bonded the spawning and rearing process in usually a natural progression, however,
11
Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the generic assignment of a group of Central American cichlids all more or less closely related to the species originally described as Cichlasoma maculicauda REGAN 1905 and Cichlasoma synspilum HUBBS 1935. In order to decide to which genus these (and a few other) species belong, we first have to look at the availability of the proposed generic names. With availability I mean: can the names safely be used for any cichlid genus without breaking the rules of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). Vieja was described by Fernandez-Yepez in 1969. This Venezuelan author designated Cichlasoma milleri (a species also newly described by him) to be the type species for his new genus, as the rules of the ICZN require. Later it turned out that Cichlasoma milleri was a synonym of Cichlasoma maculicauda, rendering the latter as the name of the type species of Vieja. The meaning of this is that whenever Cichlasoma maculicauda were to be placed in a separate genus of its own, the name of that genus would have to be Vieja. Keeping it in Cichlasoma on the other hand would make the name Vieja a synonym of Cichlasoma, because the name Cichlasoma is of an older date (the priority rule). The story for Paratheraps is roughly the same. Proposed by Werner & Stawikowski in 1989 (after their first description in 1987 failed to assign a type species) it has Paratheraps breidohri as its type species. Both names are thus available and may be used as generic names for (cichlid) species. Next question to be addressed is whether these
two names are valid. As I said above, if maculicauda would have been kept in Cichlasoma, the name Vieja would become synonym. And synonyms are not valid. They cannot be used as valid names for cichlid taxa. Since Kullander (1983) restricted the name Cichlasoma to 12 species of cichlid fish from South America, it seems illogical to assign the two Central American species at hand to this genus. The species maculicauda and breidohri will most likely never again belong to Cichlasoma for this reason. Lacking another available generic name for these species (older than the ones proposed by FernandezYepez and Werner & Stawikowski) it follows that both species may safely be assigned to these two genera. The generic names Vieja and Paratheraps are thus also valid, their type species being Vieja maculicauda and Paratheraps breidohri respectively. Unless of course it would be shown that both species actually belong to one genus. In that case the younger of the two names (Paratheraps) would become a synonym of the older (Vieja). The discussion would end. All species concerned would have to be called Vieja. Some authors (mainly aquarists) are of this opinion. The problem is that these authors rarely give supportive arguments/evidence for their opinion. But this complicated matter may be solved in the near future. Recently some very interesting papers have been published on the phylogeny (interrelationships) of Central American cichlids. Oldřich Říčan and co-workers (2008) studied most of the Central American heroine cichlids (including Paratheraps and Vieja) using both DNA and morphology. Molecular (DNA) and morphological characters are good indicators of relationships. Generic 12
assignments nowadays are based upon these relationships in order to make these genera socalled natural groups.
Having said that, the question remains to which genus the other related species should be assigned. It is obvious that their assignment should follow their (phylogenetic) interrelationship. Species that are more closely related to Paratheraps breidohri than to Vieja maculicauda should be placed in Paratheraps, species more closely related to Vieja maculicauda than to Paratheraps breidohri belong to Vieja.
Earlier scientists published papers on the subject also, but they used either a small character set (i.e. only DNA or only morphology) and/or a limited number of species. Ĺ˜ĂÄ?an et al (2008) were the first to use both types of characters and almost all Central American cichlid species. That is why their paper is so important. One result of their study is that Paratheraps and Vieja are two separate natural groups, albeit closely related to each other. The technical term for this is that they are sister taxa. Sister taxa are more closely related to each other than any of the two is to another taxon. Being two separate groups (i.e. genera) confirms the validity of the names Paratheraps breidohri and Vieja maculicauda.
Paratheraps breidohri is the type specimen proposed for the complex Paratheraps Photo: Aquamojo 13
Paratheraps sp. ‘Coatzacoalcos Pair 14
Said to be discovered by the late Jean Claude Nourissat in 1983, the fish was given the temporary name of Theraps sp "33", this was referring to the amount of kilometres away from the Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz where the fish was first found, some 28 years later and the status of this cichlid is still un-described. For many years now the fish is widely known as Paratheraps sp. 'coatzacoalcos', this refers to the range of the species in the Coatzacoalcos river system in the
Tehuantepec isthmus in Mexico. Of interest reading through Robert.Millers 1974 description of V. regani, 18 other species of fish fauna are described in the Rio Almoloya (Coatzacoalcos) which included C. zonatum. This tells us that they were indeed observed before, but not as a potentially un-described species. So what changed? There have been a lot of questions regarding this cichlid, mostly the confusion with another very similar looking fish, Paratheraps zonatus (Meek 1905). This cichlid was once regarded as a possible variation of zonatus, however, many experts believe that there are enough different traits between the two fish to separate and regard sp. 'coatzacoalcos’ as its own valid species. In fact a lot of so called zonatus keepers are probably unaware that they are very likely keeping sp. 'coatzacoalcos' populations. We have to be careful when trying to separate the two fish, as there is no clear cut answer to the problem and not many experts appear to be committing themselves. Paratheraps sp. ‘coatzacoalcos’ have quite a large distribution range in the Coatzacoalcos system tributaries (Atlantic side) like Rio Jaltepec, Rio Junapan, Rio Ajal, Rio Grande. The “true” zonatus populations are noted to be in the Pacific side, Rio Tehuantepec, Rio Niltepec and Rio Zanatepec. Paratheraps sp. 'coatzacoalcos' has quite a bit of variability in their coloration and varies from different populations. Some are blue others green. Some have a golden brown sheen to their appearance (this more so in females) and display a lot of red speckling on the face. I’ve personally found slight variability can also be present with the same population within aquarium conditions. They aren't widely available in the UK hobby, but more so around the continents like Germany and the Netherlands. Rio Ajal, Rio Grande and Rio Junapan are perhaps the most widely kept populations available in the hobby. a newly discovered population were collected by Rusty Wessel. 15
Vieja argentea (Allgayer, 1991)
Etymology: Vieja=old woman / The latin word for silver is argentum ‌ argentea = silver fish Common names: White cichlid, Silver cichlid Size: Large male aquarium specimens can reach 35cm, this could take a good 4 years to achieve with good feeding and aquarium management. Females will be smaller. Distribution: Found on the Atlantic slope in the Rio Usumancinta basin in South Eastern area of Mexico and Guatemala, in Rio, Tulija and Rio Corzo. Variations of this species can be found which display different body profile and subtle marking variation.
16
17
Sam Borstein introduces the Pepper cichlid, Taxonomy & Aquarium care.
Biotopes We have a look at creating a Costa Rica themed biotope
Focus on the Archocentrus complex
Plus much more
18
19
Like us on Facebook
20