I'm glad you put that high school training as opinion, because it was
invalid from the day it was spoken :-) Given that definition the red
devil and sevrum that went into making the parrot cichlid are the same
species.
Nature doesn't give a damn that man feels he needs to give names to
organize a chaotic universe. Nature is constantly in flux with new
species evolving, hybridizing and going extinct. Over the long term
what a species is today is not what it will be later on. Its time that
aquarists began forgetting trying to decide what a species and pay
more attention to collection locations. Not even the scientists can
come up with a real definition. At least us rainbow folks like to try
to get this info out. It constantly drives me crazy that most
hobbyists could careless at this information. The history of aquarium
keeping is loaded with fish that are now recognized as more than one
species but we crossed the hell out of the aquarium stock. All because
we were told they were the same species. That is until some bright
young person took the time to actually take a look at the fish
involved. What that basically left for aquarium stock was a hybrid
mess that will never get straightened out. Reference the rainbow sold
in America as the Australian Rainbow for one. The common Geophagus
jurapari turned out not to even be that species on closer inspection.
The common oscar turned out multiple species.
All we really get when we bring a fish into aquariums is a slice of
nature from a particular time. If we don't take care to try and breed
that fish to the wild type we can still end up with fish that doesn't
resemble the original wild kept fish. Reference M herbertaxlrodi on
this list for a good discussion on that topic :-)
Cary Hostrawser
*please note the reply to address has been modified to
prevent automated junk mail. Reply to caryho at ix.netcom.com
Minnesota Aquarium Society
http://www.mn-aquarium.org/
http://home.stlnet.com/~gwlange/rainbowfish.index.html/