PYR - Aphyosemion (Iconisemion) pyrophore
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Aphyosemion pyrophore
Both yellow and blue forms exists and live side by side. PYR differes from OGO by color pattern: it vertical barring in the latter half of the body, OGO has horizontal rows of dots along the entire body, PYR only has these at the front.

FCCO



GHP
Aphyosemion ogoense 'GHP 80/01 Yellow'
Aphyosemion ogoense 'GHP 80/23 Blue'


RPC
Aphyosemion  ogoense 'RPC19'


new



PYR has been a mystery for ages, described by Radda and Huberin 1979, Seegers in 1980 later deprecated it to a subspecies of OGO without argument. Articles by Eberl (2015) JVDZ (2018) confirm Huber's 1981 analysis of rhe OGO superspecies and validated PYR.

That is PYR is not a subspeces of OGO, rather OGO is a super species, a complex of similar species to which OGO proper and PYR belong, with a handful of similar species from the surrounding region an nowhere else. These fish were originally found in the 1920s but were referred to as suspecies of LUJ, a fish no known photo exists of as of 2018. Huber (1981) gives the history as:

The fish collected by the French colonial administrator A. Baudon at the end of the 1920s. These fish were examined by Pellegrin and led to the discovery of a large number of species. Some of these are now considered to be separate species, but at that time they were grouped together. For example, A. ogoense (1930) and A. louessense (1931) were described as varieties of A. lujae
Described by Radda and Huber, placed as a subspecues by Segers without justification. Referred to PYR by JVCZ in 2018. Here are Huber's comments from Killi Data:



From Huber 1981:
3. Aphyosemion pyrophore HUBER & RADDA, 1979

The third member of this group, Aphyosemion pyrophore, differs from A. ogoense not in its morphology, but in its colour pattern and karyotype (n = 19; A = 32 (SCHEEL, 1981)). The colour pattern consists of three elements: the front half of the body has four longitudinal stripes, the rear half of the body has vertical red bands, and the caudal fin has a flame pattern, with the bands on the edges being placed asymmetrically.

In 1978, A. pyrophore was discovered near Komono (locations JH 164, 165; RPC 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23), and thanks to A. BAUDON's collecting trips mentioned above, its distribution area can be extended considerably further to the north-west. BAUDON's fish were identified by PELLEGRIN as ogoense. We should also include at this point fish No 31-144 from the River Lali, a tributary of the Louessé, and also PÜRZL and HOFMANN's fish (GHP 301, 323, 329).

A. pyrophore is the only component of the ogoense superspecies which exists in both colour phases, blue and yellow, as often happens with A.gardneri and A. cameronense. Moreover both can be found living sympatrically. RADDA (1980) states, without giving reasons for his claim, that pyrophore is only a sub-species of ogoense. This possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand, and will have to be examined more closely, if crossing experiments are undertaken and produce fertile progeny to at least the F3 generation.







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