Rio Xingu yellow discus

[Bojan Dolenc]

Farias IP, Hrbek T. (2008 ) wrote: "These clades corresponded to the 'green' and 'blue' groups of Symphysodon aequifasciatus, and to a previously morphologically unrecognized clade from the Xingu River drainage."

I know well, that in lower Rio Xingu region lives completly yellow discus fishes!
Heiko Bleher wrote in his famous book "Bleher`s Discus" - Volume 1, that "... lower Xingu region also harbours an almost quince-yellow variant, which I have also found and which is today seen in the hobby. It is almost perfectly circular discus." There is realy nice photo of this yellow discus on page 239 (English version)!
See also nice yellow Xingu discus here:

http://www.1afische.com/site/shop/image ... u_g021.gif

Is this maybe a new species?

[apistomaster]

I don't think the Xingu Discus warrant species status. I believe that they are a rather plain brown form of S. haraldi. True, some exceptionally yellow specimens have been collected but they should be seen in the same light as Royal Blue Discus. For every specimen that is quite yellow, a large number of plain Brown colored discus are captured. The Discus population of the lower Xingu is depressed so there are not enough Discus found there for commercial collectors to fish there much since more colorful forms are more plentiful from other regions within S. haraldi's range.