Eggspots Elsewhere - Welt der Fische / World of Fishes

One of the German terms for cichlids is Buntbarsche, one of the few German words also
known in the English-speaking world, at least among enthusiasts. The American Cichlid
Association for instance, has named their journal Buntbarsche Bulletin.
Among many German enthusiasts there is not really any clear distinction between the terms
Barsch (perch) and Buntbarsch (colourful perch) and when a club member speaks of “meine
Barsche” (my perches) he doesn’t as a rule mean that he is actually keeping members of the
family Percidae (perches) such as the European Perch (Perca fluviatilis), for example, but is
in all probability referring to cichlids (family Cichlidae). But despite certain external
similarities between the two (one is minded in particular of the South American genus
Cichla), the two families aren’t in fact so dreadfully close at all in phylogenetic terms.
The Percidae (perches) belong to the suborder Percoidei (perches and their relatives) of the
order Perciformes (perch-like fishes) in the superorder Acanthopterygii (spiny-finned fishes).
Until recently the cichlids were included in the suborder Labroidei (wrasses and their allies),
which, of course, again belongs to the order Perciformes (perch-like fishes). But according to
a molecular genetic study published last year by LI and his colleagues, in which a new nuclear
DNA marker (RNF213) was utilised, the phylogenetic history of the cichlids has to be rewritten
and they belong to neither the Labroidei nor the Perciformes. According to this study
the cichlids belong to a separate phylogenetic branch, together with the Atherinomorpha
(smelts and their allies), which also includes the Cyprinodontiformes (toothcarps), for
example the livebearing (Poeciliidae) and egg-laying toothcarps, the Mugiloidei (mullets and
their allies), the Plesiopidae (spiny basslets), the Gobiesocoidei (clingfishes and their allies),
eggspots No. 4
Cichlids (and other acanthopterygian fishes)
phylogenetically reclassified
by KURT F. DREIMÄTZ
LI et al. used two Haplochromis species for their genetic research. One of them was supposedly H. nubilus.
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