Wasting away in Discusville
“Are there any acara disco here?” My Portuguese was atrocious. The fisherwoman, stooping over a recent catch, looked up at me. “Yes, but they don't taste so good” she replied as she offered me a black aruana. I was back in Amazonia - again.
My mind reeled back to over twenty five years ago. We made our way down the Orinoco, across the Rio Negro; a couple of Greenwich Village long hairs looking for emerald tree boas and black caiman. We checked out the angel fish and discus along the way. Then I went back. The visions of the fishes not being what and where the books said pale in a distant memory of that girl from Boa Vista . I headed North to Georgetown with her.
I welcomed the nineties. Cold in New York, I was looking forward to establishing our new discus breeding and shipping facilities in Florida. My orchids and succulents could live out of doors. My caiman could feast on road kill and yours truly would kick back and waste away in Magaritaville while the Mrs.surfed the malls. Me and Jack, Daniels that is, and the Sunshine State. I had it figured; I had it made.
Enter the dragon. The call from Hong Kong. Lo Wing Yat, aka “Sunny”, CEO of World Wide Fish Farm , partner, boss, benefactor and at the moment trying hard to be my former best friend. “You've been to the Amazon before and I think you should go back. If we are to truly understand the discus we must document their variants in the field. You must find them. We must breed them, cross them with domestic turquoise. It's all figured out except for this. You're the closest. You speak Spanish . The strains of tomorrow will come from your discoveries”
He reminded me of my insistence that all discus were the same species and of my interest in the speciation of Symphysodon. I could persue this, take all the time I like, go back and forth, spend all the money I want, have fun. JUST GET THE FISH FOR THE PARENT COMPANY.
The future in my hands? More like: starve to death. Use my high school Spanish in a former Portuguese Colony. Confuse both languages in Colombia and Peru when faced with Marxist guerillas. Adopt the worlds longest tape worm. Be a CNN headline.
“I have to rotate the Odor Eaters in my shoes. Maybe next year. OK?”
“Now. The season is now. You can go home for Christmas and New Year. Then go back. At the end of January you can even stay home until September then you go back again. I'll even join you there a couple of times. I'll even bring other friends. Some can speak English. You can show us all around the jungle. In a few weeks you'll be an expert. GET THE FISH! See ya!”
In a few weeks I had flukes. Nothing like being mistook for a two hundred pound Geophagus by miguided microrganisms with nothing better to do in Lake Manacapuru. I've got welts, worms, itches. I've got a lot of discus and a lot of insight to the puzzle. Well, how many species are there?
Preliminary investigation and observation of discus in habitat has not yielded any evidence that more than one species of Symphysodon exists. Living in “family” groups and appearing fearful to leave their immediate areas, these groups tend to look similar over a small area. A short distance across open water in a suitable habitat another group will be found that appear “different”. Different enough to be called something else by somebody. A similar observation can be made for Mesonauta festivus ,Heros severus, Pterophyllum and Uaru. However,by taking some time and making careful observation one can demonstrate that intermediate forms are not uncommon, living both in between these groups as well as among them. Quite contrary to what most literature indicates (Burgess, 1991). That they are artificially categorized and sorted by the fishermen and exporters has confused scientists and hobbyists alike. This deceit is practiced to protect the collecting spots and I have reason to believe that many well intentioned scientists and aquatic journalists were misled by people they thought they could trust. Indeed, the fish Schultz based S. ae. haraldi upon is not typical of the area cited in the description (Schultz, 1960). There is some evidence that discus from farther east were transplanted to the type locality by an over zealous local. A more recent deception is the “Alenquer Red” It is not found in Alenquer-or even near it . Actually I found the “Alenquer” a vast distance away. Furthermore, the “Coari Green” is neither green, nor from Coari and I have no idea what a Heckel is, or is not.
Heckels without the central bar are not hard to find. Similarly, “blue”, “red”, and “brown” discus with the central bar are quite common in some areas. “Hybrids” abound in certain watersheds and are scarce in others. When collected some are shipped as “Heckels”, others as “blue” and “Royal blue” and some as plain old “brown”. Four “species”; one forest stream. If we take into account sexual dimorphism / dichromatism we can further amplify a stock-list.
This begs the question: so where are all these unusual fish in the hobby? To a great degree many end up in Asia where the discus fetches a far higher price than in the west. There, discus culture and the appreciation of them has reached the highest level. They are found to a lesser degree in Europe as well- where most get trans-shipped to Asia. Americans are typically unwilling to pay for unusual discus. We also seem to have a perverse determination not to keep the fish in the proper water conditions or feed it as it should be (Weiss, 1994). These circumstances preclude these fish from exhibiting their natural colors; they simply remain unnoticed. The color of the discus is influenced by many environmental factors: trauma, stress, diet, sex, age, temperature, quantity and quality of food, capture drugs, medicaments, water chemistry and a myriad of other factors. Simply put, most captive discus do not show their “proper” color at all under the circumstances that they are maintained here. Interestingly, knowledge of these factors can be used to “create” morphs even using one fish! It was with some amusement that I leafed through a German discus book that claimed to categorize wild caught as well as domestic forms. A few days in Amazonia had showed me how all the Heckel morphs purported to be from all over Amazionia illustrated could be found under one log. Blue heads or not, yellow fins or not ever the central bar or not could be seen in one lot of fish. It became obvious that speciating on the basis of color was grounded more in someone's fantasy than in good science. Some geographic variation does indeed exist, and needs to be properly investigated,however it seemed easier to prove it didn't.
To further fuel this contention one needs to only injure one side of a discus and photograph both to present two diffent “subspecies”. Morphs can be “created” by partially or totally blinding a discus in one or both eyes as well. The peception of light has a strong effect on discus coloration. Many have observed that they are chameleon-like. The color of the substrate or background will effect color as does pH.
By breeding these fish in captivity, recombination of genes can take place and captivity in and of itself allows “mutants” to be saved by the breeder. In nature perhaps piranhas or even the parents themselves would cull the spawn so that some of these “odd” specimens would be lost. Not all are though and occasionally they popped up in our nets. However, in captivity we can more easily see “green discus” beget “blue discus”; Heckels produce “browns” ad infinitum. This is presently being photographically documented while being investigated by DNA studies and breeding experiments. I think it will be proven we are looking at one species of discus. In my opinion, at this time , there is about as much justification for splitting Symphysodon as there would be with guppies , goldfish, and Siamese fighting fish with their myriad dramatic variances. Or as a lab technician gene maps the discus, will we discover some new variable as a validation for multiple good species? Though I doubt it personally, the jury is still out. (Mazeroll and Weiss, 1995). Time will tell. There is more field work to be done, more lab work. Some more breeding experiments. Environmental influences need more and better definition. We are working on it. To me, our predecessors now appear to be in error. I have to face the fact I could be wrong as well. I must depend only the discus fishes I have caught or I have seen caught.. Proving a morph does not exist in a particular place is problematic. Refuting previously published data that I hold as suspect , or misguided adds considerable burden to the answer to discus systematics.
It's Super Bowl Sunday, 1995. The wife's at the game. I've got to finish this article. No time to join the Miami festivities. There's a Monday noon flight to Manaus, and a Tuesday AM connection to Tefe. The discus are running in that holiest river of discus-dom and I had a week at home. I'll keep you posted.
Written by
Marc Weiss
