Didn't take that any other way. It's funny I was just reading that exact page after our earlier talk. These guys I'm reffering to are definitely a shoal. They rarely stay separated for long, but I was thinking they were peacocks. I've underwent a two month crash course in Cichlids but even now I'm only scratching the surface on these guys. Any input like yours here is always appreciated. I am slightly confused though in the difference between breeds and Species but I don't want to hijack the op s thread here
Breeds are typically a morphiological group within a given species of domesticated animal. Dogs are a perfect example to explain this. Dogs are ALL of the same species,
Canis [lupus] familiaris (the lupus shows that these are from the species
Canis lupus, or the grey wolf
, and could technically be classified as a subspecies of
canis lupus). Within this species, you have different breeds. As different as every breed can be from one another, from the chihuahua to the great dane, they are all still canis familiaris. This typically is only used to describe domesticated animals, and breeds are generally man made. "a stock of animals or plants within a species having a distinctive appearance and typically having been developed by deliberate selection."
Species are just that, different species within a genus. This would be like comparing canis lupus (again, grey wolf) to canis latrans (the coyote). While they are both in the genus Canis, they are in fact separate species.
Figured I would use wolves, coyotes, and dogs, as that genus exhibits both examples of breeds and species.
Fish aren't truly "domesticated", and while you could call certain tank bred color lines of certain species as "breeds", they are typically referred to as "morphs" or "strains". A perfect example of this is apistogramma cacatuoides "double red". The apistogramma cacatuoides is the species, the double red is the color morph, as it was line bred and is not seen in the wild.
Then to complicate fish even more, there are collection points. These are often a river name, or a region name. They usually will follow the species name in quotation marks. I currently keep spathodus erythrodon "burundi". Spathodus is the genus, erythrodon is the species, and "burundi" is a region of Lake Tanganyika where these fish were collected. An example of a river collection point would be Geophagus sp. "Rio Pindare" (or Geophagus pindare at times). The genus is Geophagus, the species is not yet descibed, shwown by the "sp." and the collection point was in Rio Pindare (colombia, if I remember right). It's not uncommon for different stretches of lakes or rivers to have the same species of fish that look quite different, but are still the same species upon DNA analysis. They will vary slightly in color or shape. The following link shows the great variation that collection points can display. There's a map showing the various species and collection points of the genus Tropheus within Lake Tanganyika. Although there are 6 species and maybe 4-5 "undescribed species", there are dozens of colors and patterns of them, some withing the same species that are drastically different. Collection points sometimes end up being made into their own species, which often start off with the undescribed form of a latin name, like the geophagus sp. "rio pindare" mentioned earlier, that were once put as within the species Geophagus surinamensis, but has since been shown to not be within that species.
Hopefully this all makes sense, and is as accurate as I believe it is. If anyone wants to correct anything or add anything, please do
