Cichlasoma diagnosis

[Willem Heijns]

It appears that Ottoni has turned his attention to Cichlasoma. Sufficient new species descriptions are to be expected. Therefore I have decided to compile a summary of diagnostic characters for all Cichlasoma species (as I did for Australoheros). One of these is the predorsal squamation. Kullander (1983) defines this character thus (page 15):

uniserial: four scales in a middle series; two additional series, anteriorly marginal to middle series, posteriorly forming median series of overlapping scales.

triserial: anterior series of four median scales, continued by a posterior series of four pairs of overlapping scales.

I find it hard to visualise the two different patterns. Here's the pattern for Cichlasoma sanctifranciscense (taken from Kullander (1983) page 231):



Which of the two patterns is this?

[Rico Morgenstern]

Dear Willem,
the predorsal pattern is well illustrated, albeit not for Cichlasoma, in Kullander 1986.

http://www.svenkullander.se/publications/Kullander_Peru_1986.pdf

See p. 309 (imprinted pagenation, pdf page 303) for uniserial pattern of Tahunatinsuyoa macantzatza and p. 324 (pdf 318)for triserial pattern of Laetacara flavilabris.

The pattern for C. santifransiscense on the figure reproduced here is thus uniserial.

as I did for Australoheros)

BTW, your work on that genus is indeed a wonderful one. Great job done

http://www.nvcweb.nl/portal/index.php?view=article&id=690

[Willem Heijns]

Thanks very much for the compliment Rico.

The reference to Kullander (1986) was very useful. On page 324 (printed version) I also found an example of a triserial pattern in Laetacara flavilabris.

I can't escape the conclusion though that the definition in Kullander (1983) of uniserial (see my original post) is incorrect. To find such an error after so many years......

[Rico Morgenstern]

I think the first one is not meant as the description of the uniserial pattern but rather as an alternative interpretation or a somewhat different expression (compare fig. 2 on p. 16 in Kullander 1983) of the triserial pattern. The uniserial patern is described in the penultimate sentence of the paragraph as "a single median series of scales preceding the dorsal fin", occuring in C. sanctifransiscense and C. paranaense

[Willem Heijns]

I think you are right here Rico. To make such an error after having read it so many times....