# Telmatochromis sp.



## renegade545 (Jul 4, 2008)

I know its telmatochromis but im not sure if its temporalis or 'temporalis shell'

male









Female


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

It is not the shell. They actually look like dhonti to me.


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## renegade545 (Jul 4, 2008)

Thanks for your response. Do you mind explaining why you don't think its the shell and why Dhonti. This sounds weird but its very imperative that i correctly identify this species. Im in the process of describing the species known as Telmatochromis sp. 'temporalis shell'. dhonti seems to have a slightly more upturned mouth, and tends to sport a yellowish color. I have seen close to 10 individual of this same species, along with close 30 fry of my own and have seen no yellow.

I have found this website, with a number of photos of the T. dhonti and the 'temporalis shell'.

http://www.destin-tanganyika.com/Galeri ... dhonti.htm

http://translate.google.com/translate?u ... l=fr&tl=en

The article on them here on CF shows pics that look very much like my fish.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/t ... _shell.php


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

Your fish have a much more elongate jaw, than either temporalis, or temporalis shell do.

When you say you are going to describe sp "temporalis shell", what exactly are you referring to. A scientific description?


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## renegade545 (Jul 4, 2008)

Im working on having it placed into an actual species name. Doing meristic and morphometric data and constructing a taxonomy key. Basically getting them recognized as their own species.

At this moment, i have meristic data on two of the 7 species and morphometric data on 3 of the 7 species. I also have DNA and RNA sequences on but one of the 7 species.

I have taken more pictures particularly of the mouth structure. I will upload them in a bit.

There seems to be a lot of misidentification within this genus. Hopefully, i can do my part and help sort it out.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

There does seem to be some issues within the Telmatochromis genus, but I'm not so certain of misidentifications. One of the areas that should be concentrated on before lending a hand to the description of the species within the genus, must be learning what the differences are in the currently described species.


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## renegade545 (Jul 4, 2008)

Fogelhund said:


> There does seem to be some issues within the Telmatochromis genus, but I'm not so certain of misidentifications. One of the areas that should be concentrated on before lending a hand to the description of the species within the genus, must be learning what the differences are in the currently described species.


That is basically doing now, describing this species is only my final goal. What im working on now is getting the meristic and morphometric data for each species so that i can construct taxanomy keys for each one, This will allow me to compare temporalis shell with each other species.

I was just curious to know what i have at the moment. Either way, im trying to obtain a wild caught pair of temporalis shell, hopefully from someone who knows where the pair were collected from.


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## renegade545 (Jul 4, 2008)

Here are the photos (ignore the quality):





































I was back at the LFS where i work (which is where i got these) and they are labelled as sp. 'red cheek'.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

renegade545 said:


> I was back at the LFS where i work (which is where i got these) and they are labelled as sp. 'red cheek'.


Ok... I'm not sure what you are getting at. They are T. dhonti.


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