Taxonomy

[Sendog]

Hallo
Where can I find in net actually taxonomy of Haplochromini tribe?
I know that it still changes but I want to know present situation.
Thanks for you help.

Krzysiek

[Rico Morgenstern]

Unfortunately, the present situation among Haplochromines (especially Lake Victoria species and their relatives, but also riverine species) is, that everyone can use a generic classification he wants, no matter if it is substantiated or not. Therefore I fear you will find no helpful information in the web. Databases like FishBase http://www.fishbase.org or the Catalogue of Fishes http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatsearch.html, as useful they may be in many other respects, are not reliable regarding the use of genus names, since they follow different sources for different species. The genus Astatotilapia, for example, is recognized for A. calliptera, but the type species A. desfontainii is listed as Haplochromis.

[mapyru]

I am not an expert, but we can still clarify a bit the situation saying that currently
the genera is commonly set to Haplochromis with in comment or parenthesis the old Greenwood generic name commonly based on specific fish attributes

here a set of examples:

Haplochromis (Enterochromis) "broken bar"
Haplochromis (Ptyochromis) sauvagei
Haplochromis (Lipochromis) melanopterus
Haplochromis (Paralabidochromis) "rock kribensis"

Some new genera from the 90's were described fully by Ole Seehausen,
are now fully introduced in the taxonomy and commonly used by everyone
samples :

Pundamilia nyererei
Litochromis rubripinnis
Mbipia Lutea
Neochromis rufocaudalis

Also some names are still available as before without any change in taxonomy
Platytaeniodus degeni

You can have a look at www.haplochromis.org for a full list of species
http://www.haplochromis.org/minifiches2/liste_en.html


Sorry for my bad English but I try to explain something not that easy to say !

See you