Vertebrate Zoology 65(1): 57-64, doi:

Evaluating the use of the anterior ceratohyal morphology to diagnose Laetacara Kullander, 1986, with comments on other cichlid genera (Cichlidae: Cichlasomatini)

Felipe Polivanov Ottoni^‡§

‡ Universidade Federal do Maranhão, Chapadinha, Brazil§ Federal University of Maranhão, Brazil

Corresponding author: Felipe Ottoni ( fpottoni@gmail.com )

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Citation: Ottoni FP (2015) Evaluating the use of the anterior ceratohyal morphology to diagnose Laetacara Kullander, 1986, with comments on other cichlid genera (Cichlidae: Cichlasomatini). Vertebrate Zoology 65(1): 57-64

Abstract

The morphology of the anterior ceratohyal is herein analyzed in all the species of Laetacara currently known, and in some species of the tribes Cichlasomatini and Heroini, evaluating the use of this structure morphology to diagnose Laetacara as well as a key character to the classification of the tribe Cichlasomatini. It was concluded that the morphology of the anterior ceratohyal is not useful to diagnose species of Laetacara by being quite polymorphic among species of the genus. We can also conclude that the traditional use of this bone morphology in the taxonomy of the tribe Cichlasomatini at present stage of knowledge seems not to be appropriate due to the polymorphism occurring in the species analyzed herein, and until a similar work is done for the whole tribe.

Keywords

Anatomy, Cichlinae, Comparative Morphology, Hyoid Arch, Ichthyology, Osteology, Taxonomy