Greenwood and Haplochromis

[DRE]

Greetings, fellow cichlid lovers! I'm sure you have all heard of P.H. Greenwood, whatever your opinion may be about his division of Haplochromis into multiple genera.

Sorry for breaking this thread a bit but I was a bit curious about that statement. What are the opinions. Is his split the best we have so far or is it better to disregard it? E.g. I see that cichlid room companion has chosen to use Psammochromis genus "created" by Greenwood.

Is there any other activities as of date to sort out the Haplichromis species?

[Greg Steeves]

One would be a fool not to acknowledge the scope of work that Greenwood took on. The shear number of fish that he was trying to make heads and tails of was incredible. By his own admissions, (as written in many of his papers) he battled with what distinctly constitutes a genus and species. He made many revisions to his own works along the way and this is where his contribution lays. He gave us all a base on which to work. His descriptions have been examined by many people, some who are quick to point out any flaws but not so quick on offering conclusions or solutions of their own. It is certainly evident that lumping everything as "Haplochromis" is an easy way out. Most cichlid species have undergone multiple genus designations. Hopefully each revision moves us closer to stability. No description is written in stone and his are not either. Ignoring or disregarding his life's work is unthinkable to me. While not perfect, he has given us a needed starting point on which to carry on.

[DRE]

Yes I agree Greg. Would you say that current scope of listed species in cichlid room companion is the best thinking as of date or is there still lots of opinions on a larger scale. How many are involved in setting the structure for Victoria for instance? I guess there will always be discussions regarding certain species, but that's just life. If most are fine with most structure it is atleast well worth building on.

I.e. My example of the genus mentioned above is that well accepted or doubtfully correct?

[Christophe de Medeiros]

Hi the <Leiden searchers have made the remark that those genera were not so obvious in their segregation, some fish may be classified in one or two genera, so even Dr PH Greenwood stated that it was not so pertinent at the end, so This doesn't mean that his works are put aside but that some of his genera are not used and replaced by the Haplochromis genus as a super genus and that the species flock of the Victoria region is too young to be split into many genera, this point lacks also in the fact that the alimentary regime is not taken into account in this classification . I personnaly do take an intermedaite position, using Haplochromis as first, the greenwood genus in second and the species name in third, in this manner yu know the diet when speaking about any fish. But the valids genera are Pyxichromis, Pundamilia, Lithochromis, Neochromis, Mbipia, except those, the others have to be validated by a description.
xris