Etymology
Hyphessobrycon: from the Ancient Greekυπελάσσων(hyphesson), meaning ‘of lesser stature’, used as a prefix in this case, plus the generic nameBrycon.
amapaensis: named for the state of Amapá in northeastern Brazil.
Classification
Order: Characiformes Family: Characidae
Distribution
Known only from a small area within the rio Preto and rio Maraca drainages in Amapá state, northeastern Brazil.
Type locality (translated from German) is ‘Small savanna brook on the B156 from Camaipi to Santa Clara, around 11 kilometers from Camaipi (rio Preto area). Around 45 kilometers north of Macapá, Amapá state, Brazil’.
Habitat
Collected from small streams flowing through savanna grassland containing clear, light brown-coloured water with substrates of sand and gravel and little in the way of submerged or riparian vegetation.
At the type locality pH variedbetween 5.8 – 6.3, GH and KH were both <1°, conductivity was 9-13 μsand temperature 24.7 – 27.2°C/76.6 – 80.1°F.
Other fish species included the congenerHyphessobrycon takasei, plus a Nannostomus cf. beckfordiand unidentified members of the generaAequidens, Acestrorhynchus, Leporinus and Rineloricaria.
Maximum Standard Length
25 – 30 mm.
Aquarium SizeTop ↑
An aquarium with base dimensions of60 ∗ 30 cm or equivalent should be the smallest considered.
It is advised to find a filter which has a water flow between 4-5 times the volume of your aquarium. At a volume of 54 litres, the filter we recommend can be found here.
Other aquarium filters which have been recommended highly by customers in your area can be found here.
Maintenance
Perhaps looks bestin an arrangement comprising a sandy substrate plus some driftwood roots and branches although it should also thrive in a planted set-up.
The addition of dried leaf litter would further emphasise the natural feel and as well as offering additional cover for the fish brings with it the growth of microbe colonies as decomposition occurs.
The latter are useful since they provide an additional food source for both adults and fry while the humic substances released by decaying leaves are also considered beneficial.
Water Conditions
Temperature:23 – 28 °C
pH:5.0 – 7.0
Hardness:18 – 143 ppm
Conductivity: 5 – 15 μS
Click here to find the heater we recommend for an aquarium of this size.
To search for other high quality aquarium heaters in your area, click here.
Diet
Likely to be omnivorousfeeding on small invertebrates, crustacea, filamentous algae, fallen fruit and suchlike in nature.
In aquaria it may survive on a diet of dried foods but like most fishes does best when offered a varied menu which in this case should also contain live and frozen chironomid larvae (bloodworm), mosquito larvae,Daphnia,Moina, etc.
Click on the following links to search for high quality live, frozen and dry food: Bloodworm, Daphnia.
To find other high quality, highly recommended foods click here.
Behaviour and CompatibilityTop ↑
Very peaceful making it an ideal resident of the well-researched community aquarium.
It is best-maintained alongside similarly-sized characids, gasteropelecids, lebiasinids, smaller callichthyid or loricariid catfishes and non-predatory, small-to-medium-sized cichlids.
Try to buy a mixed-sex group of at least 8-10 specimens, include other schooling fishes to provide security, and you’ll be rewarded with a more natural-looking spectacle.
Sexual Dimorphism
Sexually mature females are noticeably deeper-bodied and a little larger than males.
Reproduction
Anegg-scattering free spawner exhibiting noparental care.
When in good condition adults willspawnoften and in amatureaquariumit is possible that small numbers offrymay start to appear without intervention, but if you want to maximise yield a more controlled approach is required.
The adult group can still be conditioned together but a smaller aquariumshould also be set up and filled withmaturewater. This should be very dimly lit and thebasecovered with some kind of mesh of a large enough grade so that the eggs can fall through but small enough so that the adults cannot reach them. The widely available plastic ‘grass’-typematting can also be used and works well, as does a layer of glass marbles. Alternatively, filling much of thetankwith a fine-leaved plant such asTaxiphyllumspp. or spawning mops can also return decent results.
The water itself should be of slightlyacidictoneutralpHwith a temperature towards the upper end of the range suggested above. An air-poweredsponge filterorair stone(s) should also be included to provideoxygenationand water movement.
When the adult fish are well-conditioned a single pair or group comprising one or two males and several females can then be introduced to each container and left in place until eggs are detected (typically the following morning).
Initial food should beParameciumor a proprietary dry food of sufficiently small (5-50 micron) grade, introducingArtemianauplii,microworm, etc.,once thefryare large enough to accept them.
NotesTop ↑
This species is sometimes referred to as ‘red line’, ‘scarlet’, or ‘neon black red stripe’ tetra.
It is very similar to the flag tetra, H. heterorhabdus, which also displays three lateral body stripes buthas a relatively less broad red stripe, and the central stripeis golden (vs. white or creamy-coloured in H. amapaensis). In addition, the lower (black) stripe is often reduced to a horizontally-orientated humeral spot in H. amapaensis.
H. amapaensis further differs from H. heterohabdus in the following characters: maxillary with two teeth, one tricuspid and one conical (vs. four conical teeth in H. heterohabdus); dentary with five to six tricuspid and four to five conical teeth (vs. four tricuspid and three to four conical teeth); 18-20 branched anal-fin rays (vs. 21-23); 30-32 scales in the longitudinal row (vs. 32-34); 13-17 gill rakers (vs. 19).
It may be distinguished from two other similar species,H. eschwartzae and H. montagi, by colour pattern; in the former the dark lateral body stripe is continuous from humeral spot to caudal peduncle (vs. reduced or absent towards caudal peduncle in H. amapaensis), and the latter possesses two distinct humeral spots (vs. a single spot in H. amapaensis).
H. amapaensis is a member of the putative ‘H. heterorhabdus-group’ of closely-related species within the genus as proposed by Géry (1977). This originally comprised around 15 members characterised by a ‘longitudinal pattern’ consisting of a thin, usually dark, lateral body stripe, but has since been modified on a number of occasions.
Most recently, Lima et al. (2014) proposed a putatively monophyletic H. heterorhabdus-group containing only three species; Hyphessobrycon heterorhabdus, H. amapaensis, and H. eschwartzae. These all possess: a well-defined, elongate humeral blotch which is continuous with a dark, well-defined midlateral stripe that becomes blurred towards the caudal peduncle;a longitudinal red stripe extending along the body above themidlateral line;upper half of the eye red.
This pattern is different to that presented by several members of Géry’s H. heterorhabdus group, such asH. vilmae, H.cachimbensis, and H. stegemanni, which possess a continuous, solid dark lateral stripe on the body and no obvious humeral blotch, butis similar tothatofGéry’s H. agulha group. The lattercontained species with a colour pattern comprising “lower halfof the body dark, especially above anal fin; usually a horizontally elongate humeral spot, more or less united withthe assymetrical, broad band”, and includedH. agulha, H. loretoensis, H.peruvianus, H. metae, and H. herbertaxelrodi.
Hyphessobrycon was raised by Durbin in Eigenmann (1908) as a subgenus of Hemigrammus, differing from the latter by the absence of scales on the caudal-fin.
The grouping was revised by Eigenmann (1918, 1921) while Géry (1977) created artificial groups of species based on colourpattern, andthese definitions are still widely used today, e.g., the H.agulhagroup, the H. heterohabdus group, etc. These cannot be considered to represent monophyletic assemblages, however, and their concepts continue to be redefined.
Weitzman & Palmer (1997) hypothesised the existence of a monophyletic assemblage within the genus based on colour pattern and male fin morphology that they termed the ‘rosy tetra clade’, with one of the characters supporting its monophyly being presence of a prominent dark marking on the dorsal-fin. This assemblage, plus other morphologically similar species, is considered to represent Hyphessobrycon sensu stricto by some authors, with the remaining species included in a much-expanded H. heterohabdus group.
Others have proposed conflicting, typically more restricted, views of both the genus and/or its constituent species groups, and significant confusion remains. What is clear is that, as currently recognised, Hyphessobrycon is a polyphyletic lineage containing several genera.
The process of splitting it up has already started, and Malabarba et al. (2012) revalidated the genus Ectrepopterus Fowler, previously considered a synonym of Hyphessobrycon. They also analysed its relationships within the Characidae in the context of Mirande’s (2010) previous work, but included the type species, H. compressus, for the first time in such a study. The results demonstrated that H. compressus is more closely-related to ‘rosy tetra’ representatives such as H. eques, H. pulchripinnis, and H. socolofi than other members of the genus including H. anisitsi, H. bifasciatus, H. elachys, H. herbertaxelrodi, and H. luetkeni.
References
- Zarske, A. and J. Géry, 1998 - Zoologische Abhandlungen; Staatliches Museum für Tierkunde in Dresden 50(1): 19-26
Hyphessobrycon amapaensis spec. nov., eine neue und mutmassliche Stellvertreterart von Hyphessobrycon heterorhabdus (Ulrey, 1894) aus dem Bundesstaat Amapa in Brasilien (Teleostei: Characiformes: Characidae). - Calcagnotto, D., S. A. Schaefer, and R. DeSalle, 2005 - Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 36(1): 135-153
Relationships among characiform fishes inferred from analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial gene sequences. - Géry, J., 1977 - T. F. H. Publications, Inc.: 1-672
Characoids of the world. - Lima, F. C. T., D. P. Coutinho and W. B. Wosiacki, 2014 - Zootaxa 3872(2): 167-179
A new Hyphessobrycon (Ostariophysi: Characiformes: Characidae) from the middle Amazon basin, Brazil. - Malabarba, L. R., V. A. Bertaco, F. R. Carvalho & T. O. Litz., 2012 - Zootaxa 3204: 47-60
Revalidation of the genus Ectrepopterus Fowler (Teleostei: Characiformes), with the redescription of its type species, E. uruguayensis. - Mirande, J. M., 2010 - Neotropical Ichthyology 8(3): 385-568
Phylogeny of the family Characidae (Teleostei: Characiformes): from characters to taxonomy. - Oliveira, C. A., G. S. Avellino, K. T. Abe, T. C. Mariguela, R. C. Benine, G. Orti, R. P. Vari, and R. M. Corrêa e Castro, 2011 - BMC Evolutionary Biology 11(1): 275-300
Phylogenetic relationships within the speciose family Characidae (Teleostei: Ostariophysi: Characiformes) based on multilocus analysis and extensive ingroup sampling. - Reis, R. E., S. O. Kullander and C. J. Ferraris, Jr. (eds), 2003 - EDIPUCRS, Porto Alegre: i-xi + 1-729
Check list of the freshwater fishes of South and Central America. CLOFFSCA. - Weitzman, S. H. and L. Palmer, 1997 - Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters 7(3): 209-242
A new species of Hyphessobrycon (Teleostei: Characidae) from the Neblina region of Venezuela and Brazil, with comments on the putative `rosy tetra clade'. - Zarske, A., 2014 - Vertebrate Zoology 64(2): 139-167
Zur Systematik einiger Blutsalmler oder "Rosy Tetras" (Teleostei: Ostariophysi: Characidae).
