Laetacara
| Laetacara | ||||||||||||
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Laetacara araguaiae |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Laetacara | ||||||||||||
| Kullander , 1986 |
Laetacara is a genus of South American cichlids . The distribution area of the genus extends from the upper Orinoco over the Amazon basin to the middle river basin of the Río Paraguay and the Río Paraná . The generic name is made up of "laetus" ( Latin for happy) and "Acara", the Guaraní name for cichlids, and refers to the impression of smile created by the dark, oblique upward-pointing lines at the corners of the mouth.
features
Laetacara species are rather small cichlids and reach lengths of 6 to 12 cm. Females stay a little smaller. Characteristic features of the genus are six pores of the sensory system on the praeoperculare , four pores on each half of the lower jaw, a tiny interarcual cartilage embedded in collagen fibers (a cartilage that forms the first epibranchial (bone support of the upper branch of the first gill arch) with the infrapharyngobranchial bone of the second branchial arch) and a slender first epibranchial without a ventral flange. They also have the following combinations of features: a deep notch in the dorsal margin of the anterior ceratohyale (posterior Branchiostegal rays ), two horizontally arranged and one, less often two, vertically oriented scales on the preoperculum, only two scales arranged in a row on the "Cheek" and the lack of the posterior, lateral joint between the ethmoid and palatine bone .
Systematics
The genus was established in 1986 by the Swedish ichthyologist Sven O. Kullander . The previously known species were originally assigned to Aequidens and formed the Aequidens dorsigera species group within this genus . Like Aequidens , Laetacara belongs to the Cichlasomatini tribe within the New World cichlids ( Cichlinae ) .
species
Seven species have been described so far:
- Laetacara araguaiae Ottoni & Costa, 2009
- Laetacara curviceps ( Ahl , 1923)
- Laetacara dorsigera ( Heckel , 1840)
- Laetacara flamannellus Ottoni, Bragança, Amorim & Gama 2012
- Laetacara flavilabris ( Cope , 1870) ( type species )
- Laetacara fulvipinnis Staeck & Schindler, 2007
- Laetacara thayeri ( Steindachner , 1875)
Reproduction
Similar to Aequidens , the Laetacara species are substrate spawners .
literature
- Sven O. Kullander: Cichlid fishes of the Amazon River drainage of Peru. Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, 1986, page 321, ISBN 91-86510-04-5 .
- Horst Linke, Wolfgang Staek: American cichlids I, small cichlids. Tetra-Verlag, Bissendorf 1997, ISBN 3-8935-6153-6 .
- Claus Schaefer: Laetacara. In: Claus Schaefer, Torsten Schröer (Hrsg.): The large lexicon of aquaristics. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8001-7497-9 , p. 564 f.
- Felipe P. Ottoni (2018): Update of diagnoses, information on distribution, species, and key for identification of Laetacara species (Teleostei, Cichlidae, Cichlasomatini) . Vertebrate Zoology, 68 (1): 47-63.
Web links
- Laetacara on Fishbase.org (English)