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A P. scalare angelfish displays its silver coloring with hints of blue. This species is the original angelfish, and all of our modern color varieties were developed from it.
Scientific names are traditionally given by the scientist who first describes a species and are often revised by followers in the profession of ichthyology. Often, the scientific name is chosen to honor the discoverer of the fish or a friend or relative (lots of fish are named for the namer’s wife, to placate her for putting up with a fish nut). Sometimes a fish species is named for the location where it was discovered. Finally, a species name may describe some characteristic of the fish. This is the case with the angelfish. The name of the genus Pterophyllum comes from the Greek and means “winged leaf,” referring to the overall impression that the angelfish gives of floating through the water. The species name scalare means “staircase or flight of stairs,” describing the front edge of the dorsal fin as it ascends from the forehead of the fish in steps to the tall top of the fin.
The black lace, shown here, was one of the first color variations of angelfish to be fixed into a strain that breeds true.
The wild angelfish, from which all of the many color varieties available today come, is a basically silver fish with some highlights of a bluish cast over parts of the body. There are three prominent vertical stripes in all three species, with extra stripes and markings as noted for each species. There are broad distinct black lines running vertically on the fish. The first line runs through the eye, from the forehead down to under the gills. A second line crosses the middle of the body, and the longest and thickest line runs behind that one, from the rear of the dorsal fin down through the rear of the anal fin. Finally, on some fish there is a small black marking around the caudal peduncle, where the tail joins the body.
EVERYONE EASILY RECOGNIZES THE ANGELFISH
The thin body, tall fins, and elegant way of swimming have made the angelfish one of the few fish that everyone knows the name of. Its popularity is well earned, as it makes an excellent aquarium fish. Even beginning hobbyists can successfully keep angelfish if they implement proper care.
A pair of wild altum angelfish swims gracefully.
Angelfish have very compressed bodies that are thin and round. This body type allows angelfish to blend in with their surroundings and to slip in and out of the maze of driftwood where they live and thus avoid predators with much thicker bodies that cannot fit into narrow spaces. The mouth of the angelfish is very pointed, and the eyes are on the sides of the head, but both eyes can focus in front of the fish, which tells us that the angelfish is a good hunter. Anyone who has lost a bunch of cardinal or neon tetras to growing angelfish will attest to their skills as hunters. The ventral fins have become extremely pointed and elongated and are usually referred to as feelers, as with gouramis. The long ventral fins are used to orient the fish in the often murky waters of its natural habitats and are put to excellent use when the fish are spawning and they feel for a surface upon which to deposit their eggs.
Angelfish are very popular fish in the hobby; most people instantly recognize the angelfish’s distinctive shape and know its common name. If your local fish store has a good source, it will usually carry angelfish in a few color varieties and different sizes from smalls to mediums and even to young breeders.
Pterophyllum Scalare
Some angelfish aficionados are of the opinion that the fish currently in the hobby are, in fact, a mélange of different wild angelfish species and hybrids, a position that is not at all unreasonable. Perhaps as DNA sequencing improves we will be able to define the species of angelfish more exactly and learn for sure the precise genetic makeup of the angelfish common in the hobby today. Suffice it to say that, when we refer to angelfish, what we mean is fish that look most like the wild P. scalare, and it seems clear to me that this is the species from which all the variants that we have in the hobby today come. Wild scalares are sometimes available at large fish stores that specialize in cichlids, and some commercial breeders breed wild fish back into their strains for extra strength and vigor, as angelfish can become inbred to the point that many fish will develop genetic deformities and display weakness in general.
Adult scalares usually measure about four inches in length from nose to the caudal peduncle where the tail starts, and at maturity about seven to eight inches tall from the top of the dorsal fin to the bottom of the anal fin. These fish are silver to white in body color with vertical black stripes. Some wild scalares have red eyes, which is considered a desirable trait.
The conformation of this fine marble angelfish is close to being perfect; the rounded ventral fins (“feelers”) enhance the overall proportions of the fish.
Pterophyllum Altum
P. altum is the largest species of angelfish, with very elongated bodies and long trailing fins, including streamers off the ends of the dorsal and ventral fins. The species name altum means “tall” or “high” and refers to the species’ most obvious trait. True altums are distinguished by their strikingly upturned noses and by broad brownish colored bands between the black vertical bands on the sides of their bodies. I have seen altums in a fifty-five-gallon tank that could barely swim without their fins either hitting the bottom of the tank or sticking out of the water; this would make them close to eighteen inches tall. Altums that I have kept myself have never gotten much taller than around ten inches, but they are a much heavier and broader fish than are the other species of angelfish.
Along with their larger size, altums are somewhat more aggressive than other angelfish. All the regular angelfish (which are all scalare descendants) I have ever raised have been peaceable, mostly docile fellows; they hang out together in their tanks and rarely push any of their brethren around. All the altums I have ever had, from when I first got them at the size of a quarter to fully mature adults, are just plain nasty fish. Even as babies, they are always bickering with each other, spacing themselves out in the aquarium so they are as far away from one another as possible. When one fish drifts too near another, there is a small battle, and the entire shoal of altums rearranges itself. This goes on constantly. The adults demand this personal space as well, partitioning themselves out in the tank. Altums tend to be more colorful than regular scalares are, depending on their mood and probably on their foods. For instance, if you feed them foods with a lot of xanthins, the reds in the fish are brought out. When sparring for position in a tank, the fish flares out its fins to try to appear as large as possible, and its stripes darken dramatically. I have some altums that have lovely blue spangles on the region of their head and sometimes almost covering all of the body, with prominent red speckles in places all over the fish.
These juvenile altum angelfish are just beginning to show the high dorsal and ventral fins that gave this species their name; altum means “tall.”
At the present time, altum angels are not produced by any breeder on a regular basis. Altums have a well-deserved reputation for being very difficult to keep and nearly impossible to breed (but then, wild scalares were also impossible to breed at one point in
