Look at this fish! It's a strange one indeed.
It's one of the many misidentified fish in our hobby, with a story behind it.
When I started with fish, all my books featured the common Nanochromis nudiceps, and the kribensis cichlid, both from Africa. Only they didn't. Importers had missed the identification and put someone else's name on the fish. Kribs were Pelvicachromis pulcher from Nigeria (P kribensis from Cameroon is a rarer, smaller, prettier fish) and hobby nudiceps were Nanochromis parilus. N parilus lived closed to the Congo (DRC)'s capital Kinshasa, and were far easier to catch. For a while, they became common, and now are sought after occasional visitors. They are lovely fish in their own right, but in older literature, misrepresented. Exporters wouldn't go after the harder to get to real nudiceps because everyone thought they already knew the fish. The name mistake squished the market, as it did for the true Pelvicachromis kribensis.
I found out about this name cross up 30 years ago, and vaguely but not optimistically wanted to see the real thing. I didn't think it was better or anything - it was all simple curiosity. I like Nanochromis and have kept a lot of the species in the group (at various times parilus, teugelsi, splendens, consortus and transvestitius). I had never seen the one the books said was common.
I got them mixed with teugelsi recently, and it took some growing of them and advice from the real experts for me to be able to sort them out. The two species occur close together and aren't wildly different. Stripe patterns, colours and a red blotch behind the female's eye mattered. So here they are, one of my holy grails found - Nanochromis nudiceps.
It's one of the many misidentified fish in our hobby, with a story behind it.
When I started with fish, all my books featured the common Nanochromis nudiceps, and the kribensis cichlid, both from Africa. Only they didn't. Importers had missed the identification and put someone else's name on the fish. Kribs were Pelvicachromis pulcher from Nigeria (P kribensis from Cameroon is a rarer, smaller, prettier fish) and hobby nudiceps were Nanochromis parilus. N parilus lived closed to the Congo (DRC)'s capital Kinshasa, and were far easier to catch. For a while, they became common, and now are sought after occasional visitors. They are lovely fish in their own right, but in older literature, misrepresented. Exporters wouldn't go after the harder to get to real nudiceps because everyone thought they already knew the fish. The name mistake squished the market, as it did for the true Pelvicachromis kribensis.
I found out about this name cross up 30 years ago, and vaguely but not optimistically wanted to see the real thing. I didn't think it was better or anything - it was all simple curiosity. I like Nanochromis and have kept a lot of the species in the group (at various times parilus, teugelsi, splendens, consortus and transvestitius). I had never seen the one the books said was common.
I got them mixed with teugelsi recently, and it took some growing of them and advice from the real experts for me to be able to sort them out. The two species occur close together and aren't wildly different. Stripe patterns, colours and a red blotch behind the female's eye mattered. So here they are, one of my holy grails found - Nanochromis nudiceps.
