Apistogramma Ortegai, A New Species Of South American Cichlid
By Leonard Ho
Click through to see the images.
We can tell the live photos published in Zootaxa really don’t show A.ortegai in all its potential glory. The male in particular is guaranteed to be much more of a show stopper when it flairs its impressive fins. Just look at the streaming (but collapsed) dorsal and anal fins! When open, we expect the a fully developed displaying A.ortegai may look similar to the A.cacatuoides pictured to the right, whose female (forefront) coincidentally looks awfully similar to the female A.ortegai. However, the researchers find that A.ortegai belongs to the Apistogramma regani species group.
Apistogramma ortegai was discovered in shallow Peruvian streams like the one pictured below where the waters are acidic, turbid, and rich in dissolved organics.
Apistogramma are awesome little fish that is commonly kept and bred by aquarists.
Read more here: Advanced Aquarist
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