Frontosa ID ??

[tropical-fish]

Just picked up a new juvenile (2"-3") Front from the LFS today. It was in a tank labelled as Burundi but looked a bit out of place with a distinct dark mark running between the eyes.

Anyone able to help me correctly identify this little guy?

Thanks

 

[Jacobsal91]

Thats a frontosa. They get super big! They are great fish

 

[tropical-fish]

thanks for the confirmation jacobs.

anyone able to advise what variant of Frontosa this is?

 

[kay-bee19]

Probably one of the southern 'Gibberosa' types. With the, the eye-bar forms a 'mask' which connects to eye bar on the other side, not the vertical eye-stripe that the northern burundi variant has (their vertical eye stripes are not connected to each other).

Left (southern gibberosa type, Mpimbwe actually); Right (Burundi); note the eye stripe difference:

Close up of the juvenile mpimbwe from the above photo:

And years later as a matured adult:

Unfortunately there are several southern-types and they can appear quite similar when small, so it's hard to tell which type of 'Gibberosa' you have at this time.

The mask of my Kipili-variant (also a southern type) is slightly different than that of my mpimbwe:

 

[tropical-fish]

hey kay-bee19, thanks for your input. the 1st photo you posted is a great example of the stripe difference. looking at it now the stripe on my fella definitely looks like a gibberosa.

guess i'll just have to wait for this one to grow a few more inches, do a bit of research on gibberosa types and try to ID it again... with your help of course

by the way, your fish look great!

 

[tropical-fish]

only a few days have passed but it's time for some new photos already. i'm amazed by how different he looks already