Cichla temensisThis species is the fabled tucanare; it has a number of different names, the blue tucanare, the speckled or spotted tucanare, pavon, azul, and paca , pinta lapa, tucanare-acu and of course just plain grande.
This is the fish that entices the sport fishermen to the rivers of the rainforest and with the current all tackle world record standing at 28lbs, you perhaps can understand why. In the fish market at Manaus specimens over 30lbs have been noted. The body markings and colour of this species of fish are highly variable. This diversity of pattern marks and body colour etc has probably added to the 'number of species controversy'.
One of the common feature markings for all C. temensis is the black mottling behind the eyes, however this patterning is never constant, and it can vary from one or two small black marks to quite large blotches.
Most specimens I have encountered have bright orange coloration on the bottom half of the tail fin. The adult male develops a pronounced large fatty bump on the top of the head prior to spawning there are various theories postulated as to why such a growth appears it may be simply a case of a device for attracting the female of the species, the bigger the bump the better the chances of finding a mate if you know what I mean, it is believed that after spawning the bump slowly reduces.
There are other ideas regarding the bump, one is that it acts as some form of visual beacon for the infant fry keeping them close to the parent fish some experts seem to think that the bump exudes a pheromone scent keeping the fry close to the guardian father.
Peacocks build a nest in order to lay their eggs and the fry when hatched are taken into the mouths of the parent fish, for like many cichlids from around the world, they are mouth brooders jealously guarding their young from all predators. The infant fry do not have the eye mark on the tails and posses a lateral dark line along the body.
The mature adults have three dark vertical lines along the flanks they can vary from black to a faint gray. Sometimes the fish are marked with faint fawn dots running laterally down the body reminiscent of the markings on a young deer which prompts yet another local name 'venado pavon' (venado , a deer); and paca I have found that this variant fights harder, weight for weight, than other variants.
Occasionally a fish can have the vertical black bars and the faint fawn coloured spots running horizontally along the flanks. It has been noted that in some specimens they start out with the speckled markings which gradually fade away and then they develop the usual vertical black bars. Is it any wonder there is so much confusion as to species identification? By now you will be as confused as I am.
As you can appreciate there is a lot more scientific work to be carried out on the peacock bass, for absolute identification to be possible, until then we will not really know if we are fishing for separate species, sub-species or local variants of a single species. Does it really matter? In truth it does not worry me too much as long as the fish are there and can be tempted to take my fly.
Cichla ocellaris» |
