Open Access PDF - Sven Kullander

328
Fig. 28. Cichla kelberi, paratype, MZUSP 50601, 17.2 mm SL; Brazil: Pará: Igarapé do Grilo, Rio Tocantins, Pindobazinho.
Fig. 29. Cichla kelberi, paratype, MZUSP 50601, 48.4 mm SL; Brazil: Pará: Igarapé do Grilo, Rio Tocantins, Pindobazinho.
many scales are lost, and a through-going perforation
likely caused by an arrow or spear through
the larger syntype perforates the E1 row; Castelnau
gives the range 72-75.
In the description, Castelnau says that “l’anale
est piquetée de rouge et de noir”, i.e., the anal fin
is spotted with red and black. This is significant
because C. kelberi is diagnosed particularly by its
anal fin colouration. One of us re-examined the
existing syntypes with special emphasis on the
possible presence of spots on the pelvic and anal
fins, which were not mentioned by Kullander
(1986). Whereas the pigmentation on these fins is
indeed not uniform, we cannot recognize light
spots of the kind displayed by some freshly preserved
adults of C. kelberi although the silvery
caudal blotch ring is well preserved in the syntypes.
Close to imperceptible light mottling of the
otherwise brownish scaled portions of the pelvic,
anal, and caudal fins does not permit ambiguous
identification as homologous with light spots in
fresh specimens of C. kelberi, and is at least
partly referable to lost scales. The light anal fin
patches are located anteriorly on the fin in the
transition between the scaled portion and the
scaleless margin, a condition which is different
from fresh specimens in which the light spots are
located on the posterior soft rays. Whereas the
light mottling of the anal fin possibly can be correlated
with the red spots described and figured
by Castelnau, it does not match the white or yellow
spots observed in fresh preserved specimens
of C. kelberi, and is doubtfully distinct from uneven
artifactual discolouration of fins in other old
specimens of Cichla.
Whereas the larger syntype has 79 scales in
the E1 row, which is in the upper portion of the
range of counts of C. monoculus and near the
median of the slightly higher range of C. kelberi,
the smaller syntype has 71 scales, which is far
Kullander & Ferreira: Review of Cichla