melgar?

[Noddy65]

Heres some better shots of my A. melgar? Not really sure what they are.

Female

One male

Another male

and a little movie as well.


Any ideas or confirmation?

Thanks in advance
Mike

 

[Mike Wise]

Mike, this certainly isn't A. sp. Melgar (= A. sp. Nanay of Koslowski, DATZ, Staeck, and everyone else except Römer). The fish look like a member of the Pebas-complex, probably one of the populations of A. sp. Pebas. The caudal spot on the 1st male is like that on A. sp. Pebas. The male in the movie has a caudal spot more like that of A. sp. Parrot/Papagei. I am not certain about the 2nd male. The female has a most unusual caudal spot that is not like either of the forms (nor A. sp. Melgar)! Are these truly wild-caught fish? Could they be domestic fish that are a mix of the 2 Pebas-complex forms?

 

[Noddy65]

Hi Mike
Thanks for the info.
The fish were apparently wild caught but Apistos are very difficult to get here in Aus so they could really be wild caught or from a capitve population. The males and females came from 2 different shipments of the supossed same species but it wouldnt surprise me at all if they not related.
I have another female and Ill try and get a pick of her, interestingly this female is significanlty larger than the one in the photo above.
The male fish in the second photo is the same fish in the movie.

Regards
Mike

 

[Noddy65]

A much better photo

Mike

 

[koty]

Here is a picture of a Papagai active m & fm. Their ID is sure as they are from the same paerents:

I wonder if the different pattern (mine vs Noddy65) on the female is a variation or a sign of a different sp?

 

[Mike Wise]

Koty, your female has a caudal spot that is a bit atypical for A. sp. Papagei/Parrot, but the flank spots are dead on for Papagei. The typical caudal spot for A. sp. Papagei appears as a wide rectangle with rounded sides, but pinched in the middle, sort of like an infinity symbol "∞". The photo of the male shows no diagnostic dark markings, but the colos are basically that of a male Papagei. I would cosider them A. sp. Papagei.

There are several different color morphs of A. sp. Pebas and at least 2 different color morphs of A. sp. Papagei. Additionally, these 2 species are very closely related and it is not inconcievable that they represent a single species. It is possible that the different forms/species are frequently mixed by exporters at times or cross bred in aquariums.

 

[DrMike]

Debate on names & Fish Collecting - Rio Ampiyacu, 2010

New to the forum and just got a couple of (hopefully not too contentious) words and an invitation.

First, to put my oar into the old debate about whether Uwe is/was right to use the name Apistogramma sp. "Nanay" for the fish which has also been sold as the "Parrot Apistogramma" (sp. "Papagei", "Algodon" etc...). Taxonomically he is right, might be a pedantic point, but until the species is given a proper scientific name (and as far as I'm aware it hasn't yet) there strictly is no name for this fish. In Germany fish are often given different common names to those used in the UK and the US. Heck the common names used in the US are often different to those used in the UK and we speak the same language(ish). Uwe is just being taxonomically correct by using the first name he came across for this fish, and as an export to Germany under the 'misnomer' "Nanay" it would have been called "Nanay" in Germany at that time. This is not about his supposed "arrogance"... about which I don't know him well enough to comment, it's just about him being right!

Okay, otherwise I agree, here in the UK we were introduced to this fish as "Papagei" and it stuck, and "Nanay" is a more appropriate name for sp. "Melgar" geographically. Originally it was thought that "Papagei" came from the Rio Nanay too though. Time and again people read far too much into supposed collection sites for species collected by local professionals with a vested interest in misleading the competition!

Personally, I think it would be good if an Apistogramma was named after Julio Melgar, who has been influential in getting new Apisto species known about and better quality export procedures for Apistos hailing from Iquitos, so I like the name "Apsitogramma melgar", there is more justification for it than all the various "axelrodi" species out there (why do we have so many fish named after that crook?).

I don't have any axe to grind personally, but I'd like to see "Papagei" and "Melgar" as the names used. Don't get me wrong, I like the DATZ book, it's excellent, but I don't agree with it 100% either (the personal views of the authors are NOT proven facts and there is no justification to express them as such), and I certainly don't agree that Uwe's Cichlid Atlas 2 is extremely flawed - sorry, but that just sounds like complete arrogance to me! Uwe's atlas (both volumes) are highly useful books and contain a lot of useful information for those that can be bothered to read them. Apistogrammas seems to have been plagued by strong willed 'personalities' (scientists as well as amateurs) with their own agendas and ideas since the 1980s at least, it's fine to express opinions, but the truth has an annoying habit of proving Apisto. 'experts' wrong later on. Currently there is still a lot of uncertainty about the Apistos in the so called "Pebas (or Pevas) complex" anyway so it's all a bit of a moot point until these uncertainties are resolved. Which brings me neatly on to:

In the last week of August I've agreed to hire Devon Graham's (Project Amazonas, Margarita Tours) new boat to do some fish collecting in the Rio Nanay and the Rio Ampiyacu and hopefully some spots in between, lots of interesting Apistos, Apistogrammoides, Laetacara sp. etc... around Iquitos. The main goal for me is collecting Apistos in the Ampiyacu tributaries (sp. "Pebas" "Papagei" etc...), but another highlight will be collecting Discus on the lower Nanay just out of Iquitos. We'll attempt to cater to all tastes and whatever different agendas we can fit in the little time available. We're not intending to go far enough up the Nanay to collect any of the endemic Apistos from there, or the Red Pencils, but they will be available from exporters in Iquitos (as will other Peruvian species).

There are still a few spaces available on a first come, first served basis. It's all pretty basic, anyone coming needs to be able to look after themselves (it's not a 5* cruise okay), previous experience of collecting in the tropics would be useful, but not essential. It's also cheap, all costs are shared equally. Everyone going so far is from the UK, that's not essential, but it is cheaper to ship the fish back if we can get more boxes coming in to the same airport. Also anyone getting in touch in the next week, or two, could benefit from very cheap block booked flights to Lima from Gatwick (currently £600 pax return).

 

[Mike Wise]

Reading your post, all I can think of is 'different strokes for different folks'. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. It's obvious that you don't know the history of the Papagei/Melgar controversy (both species were originally collected by Julio Melgar, who sent specimens to several different experts on apistos). Unfortunately, Römer got the collecting location of the Papagei species wrong when reading Julio's email to him (Yes, I personally talked to both Uwe and Julio about this.). One of the problems was that Julio was already selling the fish from the Río Nanay (A. sp. Nanay/Melgar) in the US before Uwe published is introduction of the fish from the Ampiyacu (A. sp. Papagei/Nanay) as 'A. sp. Nanay'. This caused a lot of confusion, so Koslowski proposed a fix for this by using 'papagei' for the Ampiyacu fish and 'Nanay' for the fish from the Nanay and the first species sold as 'A. sp. Nanay'. This is actually more of a 'tempest in a tea pot' since both are just common names for undescribed species. Neither name is recognized as ICZN. I will admit that, if nothing else, Uwe is consistent. Even after admitting to me the honest mistake anyone could make, he still feels that the name for the Ampiyacu fish should remain 'A. sp. Nanay' even though it comes from nowhere near the Río Nanay. Very confusing to me.

As for books on dwarf cichlids, well each has it strengths and shortcomings.

'Cichlid Atlas 1' is a very good book filled with a lot of valuable information. Much of it comes from Uwe's PhD research. In my opinion, there are some questions about species identifications in CA1. I have a 3 page Word document of what I believe are misidentified species in this book. I must admit I have the advantage of recent information and access to collectors and enthusiasts that Uwe didn't have at the time. This book is now over 10 years old (original manuscript finished in 1997) and we have more information on distribution and biotopes of some species that were then little known. Still there were obvious ID errors in it as reported in the the German and English-speaking forums and magazines just after it was published.

I had problems with parts of CA2, which Mary Bailey (BCA) and I helped translate into English for Uwe, when I first got parts of the original manuscript. I feel that parts of it were a 'rush job' and not very well thought out. There are places in it that give contradictory data. He gave many of the fish species in it, which had already been introduced and given common names, different names. Not necessarily a real problem, since common names are't recognized by the ICZN. I now have a 1½ page document of what I believe are misidentified species in this book. That doesn't include the dozens of sticky labels on pages of my copy of the book that don't make sense or to me are wrong.

I won't say much about the DATZ book, since I am one of the contributors to this Special Publication/Sonderheft. It is basically a photographic compliment to Koslowski's 2002 book 'Die Buntbarsche Amerikas Band 2: Apistogramma & Co.' This book (Koslowski 2002) was based on data gleened from apisto collectors/hobbyists from all over the world. It was very comprehensive and the species accurately identified for the most part. The photos weren't very good (very dark, in fact) and was one of the reasons DATZ published the DATZ book. What I find particularly interesting is how Koslowski's species IDs so closely match the IDs derived from Miller & Schliewen's genetic studies. Obviously both Koslowski's and the DATZ books tend to be liberal in splitting species, but it is also conservative in that most of these splits come with a 'cf.' In this way they recognize that, although visually and genetically, different, there is still a question of them being separate species.

I strongly encourage every serious apistophile to take a collecting trip to South America. My trip with TomC and Julio to Peru and Colombia was a trip of a life time. We 'freelanced' our trips. By not going on a tour, but hiring our own native collectors (and at times living with them in their homes) added spontaneity and unique perspectives to the experience. Certainly, doing it this way is not for everyone. If this sort of 'roughing it' and unpredictability are not for you, specialized fish collecting tours can be a close approximation!