Open Access PDF - Sven Kullander

ion; belly lighter than the other parts of the body.”
(Jardine, 1843: 145).
The description of C. trifasciata derives mainly
from a drawing provided by Schomburgk. The
local appellation provided, Lucanari Grande, is
a Guyanese-Spanish mix, and not likely to derive
from the Brazilian portion of Rio Negro, where
the corresponding Tupi-Guarani would have been
Tucunaré-açu. Nonetheless, the drawing (Jardine
1843: pl. 9) shows a fish clearly referable to
C. temensis. It is apparently a breeding male as it
features a small but distinct hump. The body is
greenish, with grey dorsum, three wide dark
vertical bars, black spots on the head side apparently
representing the postorbital stripe and associated
spots on the gill cover, but no yellow
spots or lines on the side. Lower fins, iris and
branchiostegal membrane are painted dull or
bright red.
Heckel’s Cichla tucunare is based on a stuffed
specimen 2 feet long from Rio Branco, probably
more precisely Forte do Rio-branco (= Forte or
Fortaleza de São Joaquim, near Boa Vista), where
the local name was recorded (Heckel, 1840: 409).
The holotype cannot now be located, but the
description agrees very well with C. temensis.
Cichla tucunare is diagnosed as having continuous
lateral line and 110-120 scales; three vertical bars
on the side, a narrow postorbital stripe, a caudal
ocellus and rows of milky white spots behind the
caudal ocellus. Heckel also mentions traces of
yellowish spots on the body and dorsal fin.
Heckel (1840: 413) apparently also had one or
more specimens of C. temensis from Rio Negro,
but those were smaller specimens (13 inches TL)
showing characteristic rows of light spots along
the side.
The description of Cichla unitaeniatus Magalhães
(1931) may have been unintentional, and is
not so precise as to permit unequivocal identification
of the species. It is contained in a note
headed “Nota: TUCUNARÉ-SUBIANA – Chichla
uitaeniatus, ? – Rio Negro” (corrected in the
errata to tucunaré sorubiana, Cichla unitaeniatus).
Magalhães never observed a specimen, but describes
the species on characters supplied by
“credible persons”: “Whitish tucunaré with a dark
band along the lateral line; this band starting a
little behind the gill opening and runs to the base
of the caudal fin, forming a slight curve”. The
species is further said to be the largest tucunaré
species in the Negro and Purús, attaining 80 cm
total length, but is not as common as C. ocellaris.
Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters, Vol. 17, No. 4
381
Given the distribution, the large size, the name
sorubiana (cf. sarabiana of Natterer), and the
compatible colour pattern (typical of young
C. temensis only), it seems likely that the description
refers to C. temensis and not to any other
Mid-Amazonian species of Cichla. However, at
commercial sizes none of the Cichla species would
show a horizontal stripe as described by Magalhães.
Steindachner (1883: 3, pl. 1 fig. 3), reports a
26 cm SL specimen of C. temensis from Iquitos in
Peru said to have 95 scales along the side, and
provided a figure stated to show a juvenile
specimen. He also reports a 22 cm SL specimen
of C. ocellaris from the Rio Huallaga, but illustrats
the species with a juvenile (1883: 3, pl. 1 fig. 2).
The figure of C. temensis shows a juvenile C. temensis
or possibly C. pinima, whereas the figure of
C. ocellaris shows a young C. orinocensis. The illustrations
apparently do not show Peruvian
specimens, but are probably based on material
from the Thayer Expedition, traveling only within
Brazil, from which specimens of C. temensis
and C. orinocensis were deposited in NMW. Steindachner
(1883: 3) states that he would provide
detailed descriptions of the variability within
C. ocellaris in the second part of his paper on
Amazonian cichlids. The first part (Steindachner,
1875) dealt almost exclusively with Thayer Expedition
material. This second part, however, was
never published. The Peruvian Cichla specimens
were deposited in the Museum für Tierkunde,
Dresden. The C. temensis specimen was discarded
in 1909, and the C. ocellaris specimen was identified
by Kullander (1986: 60), as a probable C. monoculus.
Although C. temensis may be the largest species
of Cichla, and consequently the largest species
of cichlid in South America, precise measurements
of large specimens are scarce, and it is not always
documented whether lengths are standard or
total lengths. There appear to be no really large
specimens in museum collections. The sport fishing
weight record is 27 lbs (12.25 kg) (IGFA data
at http://www.peacockbassassociation.com/).
Jepsen et al. (1999) reported a maximum length
of 750 mm SL and maximum weight of 9.2 kg in
C. temensis from the upper Rio Negro. Winemiller
(2001: p. 98) gives maximum sizes 810 mm
SL in rivers and 621 mm SL in reservoirs in Venezuela.
Román (1981: 83) has a photo of a 710 mm
SL specimen. Other species of Cichla generally do
not exceed 500 mm in SL, and rarely more than