Astronotus rubroocellatus Rio Negro

17. January 2025

The scientific assessment of the various species within the genus Astronotus varies greatly, with most scientists only accepting three species, namely A. crassipinnis, A. ocellatus and A. mikoljii, which was only described in 2022. Others believe that there are many more species and that the genus urgently needs a scientific revision. The species compressus (Peru, syn. to ocellatus), hyposticta (Peru, syn. to ocellatus), orbiculatus (Santarém, Brazil, syn. to A. ocellatus), rubroocellata (Rio Negro, Brazil, syn. to A. ocellatus) and zebra (Santarém, Brazil, syn. to A. ocellatus) are scientifically validly described, but “officially” in synonymy.

We have now received German offspring of beautiful Oskars from the Rio Negro. The pictures of the parents clearly show that they are the rubroocellatus described from this very river back in 1843. However, it is still unclear how constant the characteristics of this form of appearance (the technical term is phenotype) of the oscar are. Are there really only such animals in the Rio Negro? No one can answer that at present. Another complicating factor in oscar research is that these coveted edible fish have repeatedly been released in places where they did not originally occur. Care was never taken to select the geographically correct population, but rather to take what was available. The current situation in the Rio Negro is therefore by no means a reliable reflection of the natural species composition in this river.

In any case, the Rio Negro oscars are beautiful fish. They will certainly never be able to replace the numerous cultivated forms of the oskar from the range, but they are a real enrichment for friends of natural forms.

For our customers: the animals have code 633302 on our stock list. Please note that we only supply the wholesale trade.

Text: Frank Schäfer, Photos: Thomas Weidner & Frank Schäfer