Last updated: 2019-11-12 — Created: 2011-09-05
Sometimes old classifications no longer work, so sometimes species can hop genera to sit with others they more closely resemble. To follow-up my post titled The Word of the Day is Vieja!, here is one such update of how the species in the Vieja genus have been reorganised. It also looks like a lot of the species names are moving away from the -um (singular)/-a (plural) endings and opting for the -us (singular and plural) ending instead. Makes life a little easier. According to FishBase, the following former-Vieja species have been reallocated to the following genera as of September 2011:
- “Cichlasoma”:
- C. tuyrensis
- C. ufermanni
- Paraneetroplus:
- P. argenteus
- P. bifasciatus
- P. breidohri
- P. fenestratus
- P. guttulatus
- P. hartwegi
- P. maculicauda
- P. melanurus/synspilus
- P. regani
- P. zonatus
- Theraps:
- T. godmanni
- T. heterospilus
- T. intermedius
- T. microphthalmus
According to the Cichlid Room Companion, things look a little different:
- Chuco:
- Ch. godmanni
- Ch. intermedium
- Ch. microphthalmus
- “Cichlasoma”:
- C. tuyrensis
- Paratheraps:
- P. bifasciatus
- P. breidohri
- P. fenestratus
- P. guttulatus
- P. hartwegi
- P. melanurus/synspilus
- P. zonatus
- Vieja:
- V. argentea
- V. heterospilus
- V. maculicauda
- V. regani
- V. ufermanni
Fast-forward to 2019, and we have a much different picture on FishBase/The CRC:
- Isthmoheros
- I. tuyrensis
- Kihnichthys
- K. ufermanni
- Maskaheros
- M. argenteus
- M. regani
- Oscura
- O. heterospila
- Theraps:
- T. godmanni
- T. intermedius
- T. microphthalmus
- Vieja
- V. bifasciata
- V. breidohri
- V. fenestrata
- V. guttulata
- V. hartwegi
- V. maculicauda (AKA V. panamensis)
- V. melanura (AKA V. synspila)
- V. zonata
References:
Greg(theCrazyFishGuy)'s Aquarium Research 
the one on the left looks kool.
how do you sex them?
mylfs has them for $6 and is it a good price since they are like 2 to 4 inches?
Yeah, the one on the left was beautiful, but she unfortunately got knocked off when I moved a bunch of the bigger fish into their own tank. They got along fine with lots of other little fish, but when they were sorting out who was boss in the new space, she lost. 😦
Sexing them is the same as with most cichlids, but these ones grow pretty slowly, so you can often be fooled by males that haven’t quite bulked up yet. The size difference between males and females eventually becomes pretty obvious, however. This female laid eggs several times though, so I’m sure she was a she.
That price almost sounds too good to be true! I usually pay $3-4 for locally-bred 1″ babies and that price gets up to about $10-15 by the time they’re 3″ or so. The wild-caught female on the right was $70.
Wow Greg,
the wild caught female is so expensive, but still she looks amazing and if i had it it would be a cool cross breed if you breed that to a flowerhorn cichlid.