Kronoheros umbriferus
| Kronoheros umbriferus | ||||||||||||
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Kronoheros umbriferus |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
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| Říčan & Piálek , 2016 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Kronoheros umbriferus | ||||||||||||
| ( Meek & Hildebrand , 1913) |
Kronoheros umbriferus is a freshwater fish from the family of cichlids , which in northwestern Colombia in the basin of Atrato River and Magdalena River and the Río Tuira and Chucunaque River in the Panamanian province of Darién occurs.
features
Kronoheros umbriferus reaches a length of 50 to 60 cm and a weight of 3 to 4 kg. This makes the species one of the largest Neotropical cichlids. The body is strong and elongated, the terminal mouth with wide lips tapers to a point. The fish are olive green to dark green in color. A black longitudinal band runs from the eye to the tail stalk. It becomes more and more indistinct with age. A small, black spot is found on the upper half of the caudal fin base. Cross ties can only be seen in young fish (<5 cm). In populations of different origins, the gill cover in particular is colored and patterned differently. The bases of the soft-rayed sections of the dorsal and anal fin are densely scaled. The caudal fin is rounded. The main characteristic of the species is the skull morphology, which is adapted to a piscivorous way of life and which the species partially shares with the closely related genus Caquetaia . The head and mouth are much wider in Kronoheros umbriferus , while in Caquetaia they are strongly flattened laterally. The teeth are single-pointed and conical. The front, middle pair of teeth in the upper jaw is greatly elongated and, when the mouth is closed, lies between the slightly enlarged front lower jaw teeth. The tip of the lower jaw protrudes beyond the tip of the upper jaw. The maxillary reaches under the eyes.
- Scale formula : SL 33.
Way of life
Kronoheros umbriferus lives in open water and feeds on smaller fish, e.g. B. tetras of the genus Astyanax , shrimp and other crustaceans. For reproduction, the species forms a male-mother family and the female, which lays several thousand eggs on an open, mostly horizontal stone, takes care of the brood alone, while the male defends the territory. The females become sexually mature with a length of 10 cm, the males with a length of 15 cm.
Systematics
The species was described in 1913 by the American ichthyologists Seth Eugene Meek and Samuel Frederick Hildebrand under the name Cichlasoma umbriferum . She was later assigned to Caquetaia . In 2016 the genus Kronoheros was introduced, with Kronoheros umbriferus as the only species. The genus name is made up of Kronos and Heros . In Greek mythology, Kronos is the leader of the titans , an indication of the size of fish; Heros is a genus of cichlids. Kronoheros is the sister genus of a clade of Caquetaia and Heroina .
Probably the Panamanian and Colombian populations of Kronoheros umbriferus form two different species. They differ in their coloring and an analysis of the cytochrome b genes of the mitochondrial DNA supports the split into two types. Since the terra typica for Kronoheros umbriferus is the Río Cupe in the east of Panama, a new species would have to be introduced for the Colombian population.
literature
- Horst Linke, Wolfgang Staek: American cichlids II, large cichlids. Tetra-Verlag, Bissendorf 1997, ISBN 3-89745-101-8 , pages 306-307.
- Říčan, O., Piálek, L., Dragová, K. & Novák, J. (2016): Diversity and evolution of the Middle American cichlid fishes (Teleostei: Cichlidae) with revised classification . Vertebrate Zoology, 66 (1): 1-102.
Web links
- Kronoheros umbriferus on Fishbase.org (English)