A perfect intermediate geographical variants

Q&A About Lake Tanganyika Cichlids

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jetkey
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:49 am

A perfect intermediate geographical variants

Post by jetkey »

Hi Pam,

I got one of wild caught Cyphotilapia Frontosa recently, generally this Frontosa have 99% looks like Kigoma, yellow/golden coloration in the dorsal fin, while have only six stripes, another difference is there have brown vertical stripe from it's forehead down through the eyes to the "cheek".

This Frontosa was collected from location “Kagunga” the fisher/diver caught six form there and they described This Frontosa "Burundi".

The collection Points nearby Burundi border in Tanzania, its is a perfect intermediate between the Kigoma form and the one from Burundi.

So my question is : are there have Frontosa Kigoma just have six stripes?

Following is the picture of my Frontosa

Image
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Pam Chin
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Re: A perfect intermediate geographical variants

Post by Pam Chin »

Hi Jetkey,

Cyphotilapia taxonomy is quite the debate these days. Regarding your fish it looks like a kigoma type, and the lack of the one stripe is not unheard of. However your collection site is suspect? The only Kagunga I could find in Tanzania is a long way from Lake Tanganyika.

One of the fascinating things about Frontosa is that it is such an old species and it hasn't really evolved any further for millions of years. Konings says he believes there are all the same species regardless of stripe count. The splitters want to divide up the species and have more species, it gets very confusing. Typically hobbyists put them in three groups, kigoma, sp. North and gibberosa in the south. One thing to keep in mind though is there is no overlap in population, if there were an intermediate area, there would have to be a place where both species are found, and that hasn't been found, only one species at each location.

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