Thus began the conversation, plans, design the itinerary and details of the activities to be carried out in our destiny, I must say that I were very sleepy, so taking advantage of supposedly one of my colleagues knew where to go and that I was alone in the backseat of the car I fell into a deep sleep when I woke up 3 hours later we were on a unknown road to me - when I asked - Where are we? - The answer was - We'll come to Oaxaca - heck - I thought - this oversight had cost us at least 4 hours late because to get to our destination would require a detour.
Without more details we arrived to the River call "Río Almoloya" at approximately 9:30 am, we parked our car and we prepared to enter the water to photograph the now famous Paratheraps sp. Coatzacoalcos. But the sky was overcast which made it difficult making some of the pictures, although I must say that the climate was changing, going from sunny to cloudy, rainy and windy in a matter of minutes.
I was returning to the same point where 3 years ago I collected some specimens that have served for, at least in Mexico, were introduced to the market these beautiful fish, but due to my carelessness, I could not keep my breeding pair.
On that occasion I had found only the Paratheraps sp. Coatzacoalcos and a Thorichthys sp. Mixteco, which did not last long in my tank since it never medicate against parasites.
To my surprise we found a great variety of species, the cichlids that we could saw were the following species:
Paratheraps sp. Coatzacoalcos
Paraneetroplus bulleri
Thorichthys sp. Mixteco (blue)
Thorichthys callolepis
exCichlasoma salvini
Vieja regain
Amphilophus trimaculatus
Unfortunately I could find only one adult female with fry, although the latter situation could notice it until I checked the photos out of the water, was in a cavity in one of the banks of the river, behind a fallen branch, which made access was extremely complicated, which is why I managed to take photos out of focus due to I could only extend my arm to take the picture.
Gradually the river we were giving up their secrets, we saw that the Vieja reganis are a minority among the population of fishes.
being the Paratheraps sp. Coatzacoalcos the most abundant (juveniles) together with the Paraneetroplus bulleri.
We could see adults of P. bulleri in breeding coloration, defending a depression in the bedrock. The youth like to stay in places where the current is more intense, to the hope that this will bring some bite of food.
Little by little to go looking in the most remote places we could find a haven where the 2 species of Thorichthys had made their nests, it is a wonderful sight to see these species in their breeding colors, especially the T. sp Mixteco, that really is impressive, with bright blue lips and pelvic fins with the same color, contrasting with the bright orange body and blue eyes. It was very interesting that this species is mostly curious and come close enough to the unknown object to investigate allowing a better photograph.
As for exCichlasoma salvini, its appearance was sporadic but Omar could found a female with fry.
An interesting detail is the presence of Amphilophus trimaculatus, this specie acording to what say Juan Miguel Artigas was introduced 10 years ago, it is not endemic to this area, however there is a presence of this cycle, in any case we could not view any adult specimen.
being able to see couples P. bulleri defend its territory and simultaneously maintained at less than 2 meters from other breeding pairs.
The river has clear water and we could observe, despite the fact that human settlements are located on the banks of the river does not discharge wastewater into the river, there was presence of garbage on the banks but the locals say that this was deposited by de current river in the past rainy season, which mention was unusually strong.
Unfortunately we did find some tilapia, but they were not the majority. Deserve mention different species of birds, I regret not knowing their common or scientific names but they were very beautiful.
In short this is a short review of our trip to this Mexican paradise, that is important that we maintain, I wish it were unchanged, but will need to find the solution rather than the perpetrators.
For those who want to see the complete set of photos I divided the pictures by species and the river
Amphilophus trimaculatus
exCichlasoma salvini
Paraneetroplus bulleri
Regards.
