Once
more we were able to import four wonderful, large (18-25 cm) specimens
of the Oscar cichlid from Brazil. There is no consensus among scientists
how many species should be assigned to the genus Astronotus. Most
scientists accept only two species, namely A. crassipinnis and A.
ocellatus. Others believe that there are many more species and that the
genus Astronotus is urgently in need of a scientific revision. We think
that the four current imports belong to three different species. So we
do not use scientific specific names here.
A
beautiful pair reached us from the state of Pará. The male has a high
degree of red all over the lower part of the body, whereas in the female
the red colours are restricted basically to the region around the
opercle. We are sure that fish like these were among the ancestors of
the artificial sport called “Red Tiger Oscar”.
Two
other specimens reached us from the Rio Tapajós. They most likely
represent two different species or the sexual dimorphism is extreme in
this population of Oscar. One of the specimens is very slender and has a
nice yellow basic colour. The other specimens reminds us strongly to
the “Zebra” we were able to import last year (see http://www.aquariumglaser.de/en/fish-archive/southamerican-cichlids-en/Large_wild_collected_Zebra_Oscars_arrived__en/), but this time the bright vertical stripes are rather reddish and the animal has a great number of black speckles in the face.
For
our customers: the fish have code 633427 (Tapajós) and 632528 (Pará) on
our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale
trade.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
