Lake Tanganyika Species • Differences between B.tricoti and B.horii?

[Neothauma]

Hello,

A friend of mine has recently got a group of Bentochromis as tricoti. His fish are doing well for now. He recognized that they have black markings in a horizontal pattern and got suspicious about their exact species. Unfortunately, sources about Bentochromis tricoti and B.horii are limited, and according to what he could find, specimens with black markings are counted as B.horii. Is there any piece of information or source about exact differences between these two? He would like to be sure about what he has got. He considers maybe there is a subspecies or local variant issue.

[DJRansome]

Per Cichlidae:

Diagnosis: The difference between Benthochromis horii and the other Benthochromis species is best appreciated when we consider the angle of the mouth. In B. horii the lower jaw makes an angle of about 50° with the body axis (imaginary horizontal line through the lower lateral line), while this angle in B. tricoti is about 60°.

The mouth in B. tricoti is entirely below the body axis while in B. horii the mouth is entirely or for more than 50% above it. The snout of B. horii is relatively longer than in the other species and its eye relatively smaller. In B. horii the eye is usually shorter than its snout while the eye diameter of the other species is larger than their respective snout lengths.

Males, however, can easily be distinguished by their color pattern. Males of B. horii are characterized by three horizontal, light-blue stripes on the flank with the lower across the base of the pectoral fin. Sometimes a narrower, fourth stripe is visible between the upper main stripe and the dorsal fin. B. tricoti only has two, and lacks the lower stripe across the pectoral fin base.

[noddy]

I always thought the general consensus was that the fish imported and sold as Tricotti are in actual fact Hoorii.

[Furcifer]

Hi, i'm the one who has the confusion. Both of this 2 fish called B.horii but they are looking different to
me.