I just got home from the September meeting where the hot topic of conversation tonight was the identity of a large characin that Alex Riholm brought in to the bowl show. For a change I was the third one there rather than somewhere in the middle. As Alex and Little Joe Berberich had their fish for the bowl show out already I spied a large characin that I once kept many moons ago. I asked Alex what it was and he said it was a Buenos Aires Tetra. Well immediately I pictured the little Hemigrammus caudovittatus Buenos Aires Tetra and asked Alex what the scientific name was since it obviously wasn’t the aforementioned little fish. Alex said that he didn’t care what the scientific name was and it was a Buenos Aires Tetra. Well now I had to get my nose in it and told Alex that it was a Characin and not a Tetra. But I reassured him since the class was Characins he was still covered.

This brings to mind that one of the wonderful things about this club is there are so many aspects of peoples interest in our aquatic friends. Alex for example could care less about the scientific name of a fish. He raises and keeps tropical fish and judging by the way he’s showing in the bowl show and his fish I have seen he’s doing a fine job of it. Vinny Kutty and myself on the opposite spectrum prefer the scientific name as that positively identifies the fish. Some times. Then there are many others between these ends of the hobby. Most of our members have a good working knowledge of scientific names. I am naturally in favor of a serious aquarist learning the scientific names of the fish he has. This can only broaden your knowledge of the fish as you can reference so much more material if you know what you are talking about.

Then to top it all off Mike LoBello asked me for my help in the identification of the Tetra. Well “the fish is a Characin and not a Tetra.” I tell Mike and he says we’ll have to disqualify the fish since it’s not a tetra. Mike I explain “The class is Characins. Tetras are Characins but not all characins are tetras.” I saved the fish from an ugly disqualification.
So have I kept your interest so far? I’m calling this column (and I hope it makes it to column status) Bouillabaisse. Bouillabaisse means in French, “Fish Soup.” Sit back and I’ll take you on a journey through my memory and my data bases and give you a little more knowledge into our wet pets.

So now you know the meaning of Bouillabaisse, let’s cover what the meaning to us as aquarists is the scientific name. The scientific name is to the species as is your social security number. It is a means of identifying life. A necessity man has had since Eve and Adam were raising Tilapia on the Euphrates River.

“I have a Peacock in my tank!” says the customer to the person behind the counter at your local fish store. “What should I feed him?” The “Pet Advisor” asks “What kind of peacock is it?” Mr. Peacock says his tank in the study has a peacock in a big piece of pipe that his friend had given him. All the Aulonocara cichlids from Lake Malawi are called Peacocks, most with a little more descriptive common name. Then the Oscar, Astronotus ocellatus, is also known as a Peacock Eye Cichlid. Then there’s another Cichlid known as the Peacock Eyed Bass, Cichla ocellaris. OK, you get the point.

Hey, the genus name is a clue as to what other fish it is related. The genus Aulonocara now has some thirty or more species, but we know since they are all in the same genus they are closely related. The next step up is the family. Got it so far, it’s Family, Genus, Species. Some families are big and some diverse. The family Cichlidae is one of our most familiar and includes all the cichlids. Cichlids are found from Central America all the way to the Indian Subcontinent, living in South America, Africa and Asia along the way. Another big family is the characins, Characidae. Time to learn something. Did you notice that Cichlidae and Characidae both end in “ae?” Well, family names always end in “ae.”
Characins are diverse and are found in the Americas and Africa. This large family has more than 800 species, including vegetarians as well as the carnivorous piranhas. Included in that diverse group are little neon tetras, the giant Pacu, the awesome Distichodus, Emperor Tetras. In the New World they are distributed south from Texas and New Mexico through Central and South America.

The Cardinal Tetra, Cheirodon axelrodi was named after Herbert R. Axelrod. For those of you new to the hobby, Herbert R. Axelrod is the founder of Tropical Fish Hobbyist. Many fish are named after Dr. Axelrod honoring his dedication to the world of fish. Fish are named by their descriptor for many reasons. Often, as was the previous case, to honor a person. Many times it is to use that Latin they learned in school so many years ago. Species names sometimes denote a place where the fish is found.

Cancer oregonensis, Callianassa californiensis are readily identified with their west coast states. Aphyosemion cameronense, a Killifish from Cameroon may be a little less easy. Here’s one, Cichlasoma motaguense is named after the Rio Motagua in Guatemala.
“Why bother to learn the scientific name, it just changes anyway.” Boy is that ever true. One of the true bothers to the novice aquarist is that constant changing of scientific name. Just when you have finally learned the correct Latin spelling some ichthyologist decides that the Lamprologus genus of cichlids is too big and breaks it into smaller genus’ so as to better describe the relationships between the fishes of the former genus. Do you care? Do your really care? No, and either do most people keeping fish.

Ichthyologists, like Max Poll, Jacques Gery, Paul Loiselle, Vinny Kutty, Brian Skidmore and myself, care. I was standing in front of a tank of Neolamprologus with Al Knowles at the International Cichlid Conference. “These look like the Lamprologus savoryi savoryi of old.” I commented to Al. He didn’t know the story. In the early days of Lake Tanganyikan fish there was a neat Lamprologus with stripes that was just making the rounds of the hard core Cichlid freaks. Lamprologus was a huge genus in those days, just about everything being thrown in it that looked close. The fishes scientific name was Lamprologus savoryi. Soon thereafter from the collection stations of Pierre Brichard, came another savoryi only without the stripes. This one had subtle yellow and a more pale body. It soon became a subspecies of savoryi. Now we had Lamprologus savoryi savoryi and Lamprologus savoryi elongatus. Finally they decided that the two fish were distinct enough to not be subspecies but rather full species on their own. Lamprologus savoryi savoryi was shortened to Lamprologus savoryi. Lamprologus savoryi elongatus would normally be shortened to Lamprologus elongatus but a glitch in the program was that there was already another fish with that name.

This gave the ichthyologists a chance to honor Pierre Brichard by having his name attached to the most popular cichlid fish to come out of Lake Tanganyika, Lamprologus brichardi. When Lamprologus was broken up savoryi and brichardi went with the Neolamprologus group. Neo meaning “close to.” Lamprologus elongatus was moved into the Lepidiolamprologus genus leaving the Neolamprologus elongatus available and therefore the brichardi was changed to its prior species name. Max Poll resurrected brichardi in that he claimed another species in the genus Neolamprologus had a prior claim to the name. Originally described as Julidochromis elongatus, Neolamprologus elongatus had priority for the name. Are you lost yet? Ad Konigs feels that Neolamprologus elongatus is a synonym of Lamprologus callipterus. Normally the type specimen, that which the description is made with, is studied. Unfortunately the type specimen is not available as it was apparently lost during World War Two. Another thing to blame Hitler for.

If the Konings case is to be followed then the species name for the fish we know as brichardi should revert again to the next available name - which would be elongatus. Now you understand how the Neolamprologus elongatus is more simply referred to as the brichardi. When will it all stop? We’ll quite frankly it won’t, so get used to it.
See Ya soon.