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Notes: Thorichthys meeki is a classic established
cichlid in the aquarium world. Its popularity has
been its down fall in recent years with poor quali-
ty specimens being offered in aquarium shops.
Many are generation year’s old and mass pro-
duced rubbish from the Far East. Serious hobby-
ists are starting to appreciate this fish again and
are starting to breed from quality stocks from a
range of different populations. Unfortunately the
fish has been introduced into Florida waterways
and possibly Colombia? There are many geo-
graphical variations boasting different intensities
of red colouration. A very dark almost black varia-
tion is noted from Rio Mamantel.
There are said to be 3 colour variations of this
species, Mixteco ‘blue’, ‘gold’ and ‘green’. All in-
habit different regions of the Coatzacoalcos basin.
There is much variety amongst this species and
needs further studies to establish a permanent
assignment. Going by the huge variation of spe-
cies, it has been suggested that they may be varia-
tions of Thorichthys maculipinnis?
Thorichthys sp. 'mixteco' blue ( female)
Thorichthys pasionis (Rivas, 1962)
Common name: Yellow Meeki
Size: 16 cm TL
Thorichthys helleri (male)
Distribution: Atlantic slope, in the Usumacinta Riv-
er drainage in Mexico and Guatemala. Notably
Laguna Noh, Lake Petén-Itza
Notes: Interesting information regarded both T.
meeki and pasionis is that the live sympatric
together, but never reported to hybridize, howev-
er, aquarium populations do.
Thorichthys socolofi (Miller & Taylor, 1984)
Common name: Chiapas cichlid References:
Size: 10 cm TL Artigas Azas, Juan Miguel, 1996, "The forgotten
Thorichthys maculipinnis", The Cichlids Yearbook,
Vol 6; pp: 68-73.
Distribution: Atlantic slope, in the Grijalva River
basin. Found in the Rio Mizol-Ha, Rio Bascán and
the Rio Tulija where its distribution ends (Artigas
Azas, 2006).
Artigas Azas, Juan Miguel . 1995. "Thorichthys
meeki in the wild". The Cichlids Yearbooks. v. 5;
pp. 63-67 (crc00908).
Thorichthys sp. 'mixteco'/ ‘coatzacoalcos’
Juan Miguel Artigas Azas 2006, 2Living Treasures”,
Practical Fiskeeping (2006) p 84-88.
Common name: NA
Size: 15 cm TL
Brind, 1918, "Thorichthys helleri meeki", Aquatic
Life 3 (8); pp. 119-120.
Distribution: Atlantis slope in the Coatzacoalcos
basin
Hubbs, Carl L., 1936, "Fishes of the Yucatán penin-
sula". Carnegie Institution Washington, publica-
tion 457:157-287, pls. 1-15
Notes: As of writing this particular species is still
undescribed.
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