Heros (genus)
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Heros efasciatus |
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Heckel , 1840 |
Heros is a species of cichlid that is widespread in South America. The distribution area of the genus extends from the Orinoco and the Amazon basin south to the Rio Guaporé .
features
Heros species grow to be 12 to 25 centimeters long. Your body is high-backed, oval and strongly flattened on the sides. The mouth is terminal, the forehead rounded. Their basic color is beige, brownish, blue-gray or greenish. Dark transverse bands patterning the sides fade with age, except for one that extends from the soft-radiating part of the dorsal fin to the anal fin. The sexes are not easy to distinguish. The females are usually a bit smaller, not so colorful and slimmer. A pattern of shiny dots or lines on the snout is usually more visible in the males than in the females.
Heros species are open brooders that deposit their extensive clutch of more than 1000 eggs on a stone or a root. During reproduction, the fish take on a darker, more contrasting color.
species
Currently (September 2015) the genus consists of five described species.
- Heros efasciatus Heckel, 1840
- Heros liberifer Staeck & Schindler, 2015
- Heros notatus (Jardine in Schomburgk, 1843)
- Heros severus Heckel, 1840
- Heros spurius Heckel, 1840
External system
Heros is closely related to the genus Mesonauta and Uaru as well as the discus fish ( Symphysodon ) and together with them forms a high-backed clade called mesonautines.
literature
- Horst Linke, Wolfgang Staek: American cichlids II, large cichlids. Tetra-Verlag, Bissendorf 1997, ISBN 3-8974-5101-8 .
- Claus Schaefer: Heros. In: Claus Schaefer, Torsten Schröer (Hrsg.): The large lexicon of aquaristics. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8001-7497-9 , p. 475 f.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hernán López-Fernández, Kirk O. Winemiller, Rodney L. Honeycutt: Multilocus phylogeny and rapid radiations in Neotropical cichlid fishes (Perciformes: Cichlidae: Cichlinae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 55, Issue 3, June 2010, Pages 1070-1086 doi : 10.1016 / j.ympev.2010.02.020
Web links
- Heros on Fishbase.org (English)