# Three mystery Cichlids - ID help?



## Sizuper (Oct 4, 2017)

Hi All,
I have searched through the profiles list and can't find anything that really jumps out as matching these three, which seems to my untrained eye could be the same species or 3 different. Was hoping some of you experts could recognize them.

I actually caught these in a creek in Orlando, Florida. There are no cichlids native to there and it's supposed to be too far north for cichlids to survive, but I have heard of Black Acaras establishing there, so I guess some can take the warm winters.

The first one seems different from the others obviously by the darker coloration, but also the spine counts, but I am guessing just a different gender of the others.










The next two appear to be the same species as each other from a distance, but up close, one appears to have all blue spots, the other one has all red spots.



















Thanks in advance for any help you can offer me in identifying these.
--Sizuper


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## caldwelldaniel26 (Jun 11, 2017)

Looks like native perch to me


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## Sizuper (Oct 4, 2017)

caldwelldaniel26 said:


> Looks like native perch to me


What kind do you think? I am not aware of perch that are native to Florida except minnow species like pirate perch, which have different fin structure.


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## Mr Chromedome (Feb 12, 2013)

Those are definitely Cichlids, not any native fish, and especially not perch of any kind as those have two dorsals. Cichlids can survive much further north than Orlando, there are established populations of Texas Cichlid hybrids in Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. These appear to have some Texas Cichlid in them, and could well be another hybrid of some sort. The third one has different facial markings than the first two, that resemble _H. deppii_. I suspect some sort of hybrids that escaped from a fish farm and established a population. It happens a lot in Florida.


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## caldwelldaniel26 (Jun 11, 2017)

Okay excuse me, let me use the technical term and not a fisherman's term. They are native SUNFISH, there's lots of varieties native to Florida and they could be hybrids between the different species but I would be willing bet there's no Texas Cichlid in them...


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## caldwelldaniel26 (Jun 11, 2017)

They're just very young and haven't grown into the full color and characteristic shape of sunfish, which are in the cichlid family.


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## Sizuper (Oct 4, 2017)

Mr Chromedome said:


> Those are definitely Cichlids, not any native fish, and especially not perch of any kind as those have two dorsals. Cichlids can survive much further north than Orlando, there are established populations of Texas Cichlid hybrids in Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. These appear to have some Texas Cichlid in them, and could well be another hybrid of some sort. The third one has different facial markings than the first two, that resemble _H. deppii_. I suspect some sort of hybrids that escaped from a fish farm and established a population. It happens a lot in Florida.


Thanks Chromedome! I think you're right. 
I did catch a Texas/Rio Grande Cichlid in the same stream that day (it was very clearly a Texas/RGC, and it was the same size as the others, so if the others were pure Texas/RGCs they likely would have looked exactly like it - or very close - in the same body of water, but they didn't). I looked up the Nautla Cichlid and you nailed the facial markings of the 3rd one perfectly. So I'm calling that a Texas/Nautla hybrid and the other two unknown varieties of Texas/RGC hybrids (I'll keep looking, though, for species that might be the other half).

Thanks for your input, too caldwelldaniel26! I don't know enough about genetics to know if Cichlids and sunfish can hybridize. Their lowest common taxonomy level is Order - Perciformes, which includes everything from barracudas to smallmouth bass. I couldn't find any info on how closely a fish must be genetically to hybridize, but the only ones I've ever known are in the same genus (Sander = Sauger; Lepomis = sunfish hybrids; Micropterus = black bass hybrids; Morone = sunshine bass; etc.)...I'm new to studying cichlids, so I am not sure if they can hybridize as high up the taxonomy as different subfamilies.

If it is possible for different families of fish to hybridize, like Cichlidae (cichlids) and Centrarchidae (sunfishes), I don't think it happened here. I can't see any sunfish attributes in these three fish. Fins, body/head shape, cheek structure, coloration & markings, scales all look like cichlid qualities to me. Caught a number of bluegills, spotted sunfish and dollar sunfish at the same location, and they all had the standard shape and coloration of those species, even in the few that were only 2"-2.5" long.


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## Mr Chromedome (Feb 12, 2013)

caldwelldaniel26 said:


> They're just very young and haven't grown into the full color and characteristic shape of sunfish, which are in the cichlid family.


Sunfish are Family Centrarchidae, not in the Cichlidae Family, and those aren't even close to the structure of a sunfish. They are clearly Cichlids, there are plenty of species gone feral in Florida.


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## BlueSunshine (Jul 13, 2014)

Definitely not native sunfish/perch.
Although..... They do look like they would do well swimming in a hot skillet of grease while being fed a steady diet of cornmeal.


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## caldwelldaniel26 (Jun 11, 2017)

Whatever they are, needs to be reported to the proper wildlife management authorities since this would be an invasive species and measures need to be taken to control their population.


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