ID please

[rodald]

I just came from a little collecting trip from lake Izabal, Guatemala, my goal at the begining was to collect C. bocourti but my fishing skills really suck plus i only had a hand net to do the job whitch didnt helped a lot, fortunately on the last day i came across this really friendly fisherman who allowed me to take some of the fish he was pulling out of the lake whith a really long net (sorry dont know how its called in english) at the end I took 20 fishes with me.
On my way back I was a little disapointed i couldnt find any bocourti but still very happy with all the fish, when I got home I put all the fish in a tank and started to check on the species and this is what i could identify:

8 Criptoheros spilurus
4 Vieja maculicada
4 Thorychthis aureus
1 Cichlasoma salvini
2 gobbys ( dont know the species)

And the 20th fish really got me happy, I didnt noticed it when I was pulling them out of the fishermans net, but it really resembles a bocourti to me and theres where I need youre help, I just want to know if i am right about it or if you think its a diferent species here are a couple pics of all the fish, sorry for the blury pics they were taken with a cellphone.

bocourti???






The bigest Thorychthis aureus


I will try to post more pics about the trip and the fisherman latter.

Greetings

[Adrian Indermaur]

Hy,
in my opinion clearly a C. bocourti.

Congrats for the nice fish!

[Bas Pels]

I never saw juvenile bocourty. but the fishes remind me of C pearsi, which they are not. So this leaves only 1 option: C bocourty indeed

[RobinH]

The big yellow is C.bocourti thats the only one i seee???

[EC]

bocourti???

Yes, it's not easy to find bocourti.

Ciao Enrico

[smitty]

Can you post clearer shots of Vieja Maculicauda.

[rodald]

thank you for the positive id

Can you post clearer shots of Vieja Maculicauda.

Let me try but I only have my cellphone camera at the moment, but will try

[Lisachromis]

i came across this really friendly fisherman who allowed me to take some of the fish he was pulling out of the lake whith a really long net (sorry dont know how its called in english)

Can't help with the ID, but can tell you what the English word for that net is. Usually the long nets are called seine nets.

[rodald]

i came across this really friendly fisherman who allowed me to take some of the fish he was pulling out of the lake whith a really long net (sorry dont know how its called in english)

Can't help with the ID, but can tell you what the English word for that net is. Usually the long nets are called seine nets.

Thank you.

Here is something else I want to share with you it is a video I was able to take at the moment the fish were caught
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvj1hLm96T4&feature=plcp

[newworldsss]

yes bocourti, a lot of people say this fish is very uncommon clearly they never visited guatemala, i found this fish very common in peten......

[Bas Pels]

Smartass

[newworldsss]

Sorry it just came out hahaha I really envy the spilurus you collected I remember that strain was really nice but ended up just with males....

[rodald]

Smartass

yes bocourti, a lot of people say this fish is very uncommon clearly they never visited guatemala, i found this fish very common in peten......

really in Peten? i had no idea they were present there, I was under the impression they were only found in lake Izabal ???

[Rico Morgenstern]

really in Peten? i had no idea they were present there, I was under the impression they were only found in lake Izabal ???

I would also doubt that bocourti occurs in Petén. As yet, it is only known from the Lago Izabal drainage and some other nighbouring rivers draining in to the Gulf of Honduras (e.g. Sarstoon and Moho in southern Belize).

The fish in Petén should be the closely related 'Cichlasma' pearsei, which is widely distributed in the Usumacinta drainage and in other rivers draining into the Gulf of Mexico. It is very unlikely that the two closely related species, wich occupy the same 'ecological niche', occur sympatrically. Young specimens of the two species are not always easy to distinguish, they may have been confused.

Of the other fishes you have collected, I find those C. spilurus very remarkable. Izabal is the type Locality, and these fish seem to support to some extent the distinction made by Schmitter-Soto between C. spilurus and C. chetumalensis, e.g. they have the anteriormost vertical bar forked. However, I have also seen fishes said to come from tributaries of the Lago Izabal which show an unforked bar, and I had repeatedly aquarium specimens of unknown origin with an intermediary pattern (i.e. the arms of the bar seperated above the midline but confluent at the upper end). Anyway, the variablility of Guatemalan C. spilurus seems not to be well documented.

[newworldsss]

case in point....fish don't read books to know where they should be or not, or go by records where they lived or once lived...same 'ecological niche' so pasiones and meeki or even robertsoni, shouldn't be found together?

[Rico Morgenstern]

Okay, perhaps 'ecological niche' was not a good argument although two species with the same feeding technique, occuring in the same rivers, do not necessarily occupy the same niche. There may be other differences, e.g. microhabitat choice, different breeding season etc.. But this could of course also apply to 'Cichlasoma' pearsei and bocourti, provided they would occur sympatrically.

Nevertheless, Guatemala has been visited by many people collecting cichlids, and there are very large scientific collections from this country, but not a single reliable record for bocourti from Petén is mentioned, whereas pearsei is known to be widespread in the region.

Furthermore, the distributional pattern with one species occuring in the Petén region (mostly Usumacinta/Rio de la Pasion drainage, but also Lake Peten Itza, some occur also in northern and central Belize) and the other, closely related one in the Caribean slope rivers of southern Belize and Guatemala is not uncommon. Such species replace each other in their respective areas. Other examples for such allopatric species pairs are the cichlids Chuco intermedium/godmanni, Thorichthys helleri/aureus and perhaps also Vieja melanura/maculicauda, the Poeciliids Carlhubbsia stuarti/kidderi and the characids Hyphessoprycon compressus/milleri. Others are restricted to one or the other region. All species which are shared by both regions are very widespread, none is restricted to the Petèn+Izabal area.

Certainly one can never say never, but taking al this into consideration it appears very unlikely that this species occurs in Petén, unless it was translocated by man. So please don't mind if I ask: Couldn't it be possible that you have misidentified the species? What makes you sure to have found 'C.' bocourti and not ''C'. pearsei? The latter does not always show the typical black area on the belly, especially when frightened or subdued, and in juveniles it may be broken into several blotches.

[Alex Odesit]

Hi,
Here the pictures of my 2 juvenile at that time ex C.Pearsei. May be it helps.
Alex

[newworldsss]

Rico I see your point, the bocourti I was catching were young adults 4"+, looking at both species the distinction bewteen the 2 is quite evident, I still stick by bocourti I've been wrong once before ok maybe more then once hahahaha....

[Don Hiatt]

Hy,
in my opinion clearly a C. bocourti.

Congrats for the nice fish!

Agreed 100%

[rodald]

Thank you all for the info on this really nice fish.
Here is a little video I was able to take of them.
I tried to give them the closest to theyr habitat as I can, for the substrate I used some sand I was able to bring with me from the lake and the plants are elodeas which are also present in the lake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTa6eUbm71I&feature=plcp

greetings