I guess I'm not the ideal person to answer this, not being an expert in Oscar genetics... but I think color is the major difference as johncl said. I think most tiger, red, albino, leutino, ... etc have been selectively bred for certain colors. I've heard tigers are the closest in color to their wild counterparts, but have been bred to have more red coloration- possibly a cross between red oscars and wilds or something to that effect.
I also believe that behavior, diet, size, tank requirements are the same for all of these... but once again this is only what I have gleaned from articles I've read previously.
I was wondering becuase i saw some pics from an online store selling wild Oscars and they looked just like Tigers, pattern wise, but without any of the orang or red in them.
Wilds are more grey than black and tend to have some cream parts on them(from what i've seen). I actually prefer wild color to any other, its just impossible to find them where i am
the pictures above are a bit inaccurate. The bottom pic is just a juvi oscar, more than likely a tiger.
What stores are selling as "wild" oscars are just common oscars. Commons have a very "wild" color patern to them with greens and tans and small spots of red. When the tiger oscar came on the scene most people went for them because commons were boring. They are still my favorite.
Tigers became so common they started to be sold as "common" oscars. Then as marketing sceme the commons are now sold as wild...
It's different in the UK. Over here, the Singapore farms have always (since the 1970s) marketed 'standard' Oscars as Tigers. Those with red in them have always been Red Tigers...
In the late 1960s when the Red and Tiger Oscars were introduced to the US hobby, it was reported that the Reds came out of the Tigers. Asian breeders were trying to get more red in the normal Oscar, and got a sport with none of the black markings. Currently most Tigers are carrying one gene for red, while Reds have two genes.
As for what is common and what is Tiger, I leave you with a photo from the 1950s of a common Oscar. This photo is from Axelrod's Encyclopedia of Tropical Fishes.
As you can see, wild type Oscars do have red, up to about the center of the body. When Tigers showed up, they had a strong red in all the non-black areas.
Probably had a spam post that was later removed. It happens.
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