Interochromis loocki

[arthur]

I'm a little confused. Ad Konings call them Interochromis loocki, Airfish call them Simochromis loocki and body shape looks like Petrochromis sp. "gold".
Is there anyone who can help with further?
I saw it at Kalambo which the following picture strains.



You can read a little more here:
http://www.tago.dk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=122

[Nuchal Man]

Interochromis loocki should be the correct name for the fish. It is monotypic. I don't know much about it, but it is a mid-sized 10-15 cm fish that lives in the shallows over mud. The mouth of the Interochromis also is different than Petrochromis or Simochromis as it is terminal instead of sub-terminal.

It's a really cool looking fish. Is anyone keeping these? I'd like to know more about them.

[arthur]

My good friend Kennet Arntvel took this picture at Toby's lodge on his trip in 2005

[Adrian Indermaur]

Hy,

I consider the pictures shown in Koenings 98 a false identification. The fish shown there, clearly the same as in both your pictures here, are juvenile P. fasciolatus which are very yellow and finely striped in this area.
I. loocki juveniles look very similar at this age nevertheless there are some clear distinctions such as mouth morphology and eggspot pattern and so on.
There are some pics of Interochromis found in the catalog, which were all taken at tobys lodge by the way.

Greetings

Adrian

[MGSNK]

Adrian, is the loocki an often seen fish in the costal areas? I have not seen any imports of this specific species for some time now.

[Tachymarptis]

I consider the pictures shown in Koenings 98 a false identification. The fish shown there, clearly the same as in both your pictures here, are juvenile P. fasciolatus which are very yellow and finely striped in this area.
I. loocki juveniles look very similar at this age nevertheless there are some clear distinctions such as mouth morphology and eggspot pattern and so on.
There are some pics of Interochromis found in the catalog, which were all taken at tobys lodge by the way.

Hi Adrian,

I agree with you, these photos and Ad Koning's ones show juveniles Petrochromis fasciolatus or perhaps some similar species. The mouth is typically upturned, unlike I. loocki. As you propose in your catalogue page, the true I. loocki may well be a member of the P. orthognathus super-species, except that your fish in Zambia is the so-called "orthognathus tricolor", which occurs only in the south, while the types of loocki are from the north (Kigoma). To my knowledge, the species occurring there is P. orthognathus itself. Perhaps both will turn to be synonyms...

Patrick Tawil

[Mark Smith]

A photo of the true Interochromis loocki is depicted in Pierre Brichard's Book Of Cichlids And All The Other Fishes Of Lake Tanganyika second edition published in 1989, on page 402, middle photo incorrectly labelled as a Petrochromis sp. This photo was taken by Glen Axelrod in the later part of the 1970s. He collected and photographed many cichlids from Kigoma down to Bulu Point, where the I. loocki in the photo was originally collected. This photo, along with the preserved body of the actual fish in the photo, was positively identified by Dr. Warren Burgess. The Glen Axelrod photo depicts a fish substantially different than Adrian's fish.

[Tachymarptis]

Hi Mark,

Interesting data. Then, if you are right, this fish is neither P. orthognathus, nor P. sp. "orthognathus tricolor", though it may well be related to both. It would be of great interest to "rediscover" this key species.

By the way, the upper photo is also erroneously labelled -it shows Petrochromis famula or something related, but not P. fasciolatus- and the bottom one is possibly Simochromis diagramma of the southerm form.

[Mark Smith]

Indeed, Patrick, I. loocki is closely related to Petrochromis. It doesn't surprise me that the other two images on page 402 are also incorrectly labelled. This is classic TFH for you. Lots and lots of errors that never get corrected. This image of I. loocki also appeared, as well as one or two others (if memory serves me correctly?) in previous editions to the TFH Cichlids of Lake Malawi and Tanganyika, all identified as Petrochromis sp. This book went through over 10 editions before it was finally put out of its misery. However, in the olden days, it was the only thing out their for many years.

[Tachymarptis]

You're right... When I began with cichlids around 1978, the only available books were those of Brichard and Burgess & Axelrod (and also Poll, 1956). And we were very happy to have them at hand.

[Mark Smith]

Even though this species was described by Poll in 1949 (as a species of Limnotilapia) it is nowhere mentioned in Brichard's first edition published in 1978. Only the name is listed in the key to the species of Limnotilapia in the second edition, bottom of page 385. Brichard never wrote about this species in either edition - more non-information that surrounds this mysterious cichlid.