Festivum sp. ?

I think they might be too young to tell the species, though of course hard to tell from that pic but they still look small. Dug out a species guide from Dr. Wayne Leibel from his article on them way back in the December 1995 AFM issue ...

1a. Reticulated back:Mesonauta insignis - single wide dark vertical bar above the abdomen (not two), dark continuous lateral band, unpaired fins spotted, most slender, long nosed species. Distribution: upper Rio *****, Rio Orinoco

1b. Non-Reticulated back:

2a: Discontinuous lateral (oblique) band:

M. festivus - upaired fins indistinctly spotted, most deep bodied, short nosed species. Distribution: Paraguay and Bolivian Amazon basins, Rio Jamari and lower Rio Tapajos

M. acora - distinctive mottled color pattern lateral band runs only 1/3 of the way to the dorsal fin, then fades out. Distribution: Tocantins and Xingu drainages

M. egregius - back brownish, but with no reticulation, lateral band is a row of dark blotches, unpaired fins unspotted. Distributions: Colombian Orinoco basin

2b: Continuous dark lateral (oblique) band: M. mirificus - lateral band fades slightly towards dorsal, back not reticulated, dorsal fin indistinctly spotted, caudal and anal fins unspotted. Distribution: Peruvian Amazon

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It looks like the caudal fin is spotted in the pics, but hard to tell. Would need a better straight on side view to tell more, though honestly I haven't found the guide useful at the LFS cause I never bring the magazine with me. :lol: Though it doesn't look like their band is continuous, so am guessing M. festivus given the spotting I see in the fins, the band, and the short nose but just a guess!

Hope this helps!

ryansmith- the thing that makes me doubt M. acora is the fact their 'festivum' line is supposed to stop before the middle of the fish and not reappear according to the guide Kullender did, and no mottled patern ... though granted that was back in 1995 ... with the several new species it might have been updated.

But seeing the newer pics, I don't think they are M. festivus now either. In their young pics they seemed to have the short snout, but in these new pics they seemed to grew them out. :lol: Plus in the pics at least I don't see any spotting in the dorsal or anal fins, only the caudal fin ... but the spots may not be showing in the pics ... if they have a few, faint spots in the anal and dorsal fin in person I'd lean back towards M. festivus.

Wow ... thouse are some rough festivums!!! Did no one tell them they aren't red terrors? They are pretty, so it doesn't really matter which species they are ... the temps vary slightly but since they are hardy cichlids, that's not a huge deal. Ports and festivum, two very underrated fish!!! Good job. :thumb: