How many are there?????

[silver dollars]

Ok so i have been reading and i know that the arguments are still going but..... how many wild discus species are there???????? This has been driving me insane!!!!!!!!! Some say that there are only 1(S. discus) and others say 2(S. discus and S. aequifasciatus). But after reading an article on the history of the amazon and all the changes it had, i think that there were alot more than the 2 in these arguments. I am dieing to know finaly on how many there are so that fish experts can start to focus on something else.

And one last thing that has been talked about is the cross-breeding of the different species in the amazon. Do you think that this may be the issue???? Come and share your thoughts!!!

 

[Cichlid-Man]

Just recently they named (not sure if its official) a thrid, S. tarzoo.

S. tarzoo - Red Spotted Greens (RSGs)
S. discus - Heckels
S. aequifasciatus - Browns/Blues/etc

Each type of wild will have variations according to the region the fish come from. So there are almost subtypes of those 3. Each little outcut of the amazon can have different water conditions, and different colorforms will show. For example, take greens for example. You can have like Tefe greens, Tefe Royal Greens, Nanay Greens, peruvian greens, etc.

Most of the domesticated strains are probably and most likely descended from some original S. aequifasciatus bred for color and patterns.

Hopefully i've made some sense.

 

[Pure]

like CM said there are 3 with a possible 4th.

 

[TheFool]

Recently I would have said one, but genetic work says 4 so I would be tempted to go with that. The meristics (fin ray counts, scale counts and such) are not very distinctive at all. Heiko Bleher has a very nice recent book out on discus with lots of pics that are very, very interesting for lovers of amazonian fish, but I think it's only in German.