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Science 23 February 1973:
Vol. 179. no. 4075, pp. 806 - 807
DOI: 10.1126/science.179.4075.806
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Articles

Competition between Color Morphs of the Polychromatic Midas Cichlid Cichlasoma citrinellum

George W. Barlow 1

1 Department of Zoology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley 94720

The Midas cichlid, Cichlasoma citrinellum, is a polychromatic fish that occurs in Nicaragua. All of these fish start life as normally colored, cryptic individuals. In some populations a few fish change into conspicuously colored morphs, most frequently gold. When kept in unmixed color groups, golds and normals grow at the same rate; but when they are mixed, growth of the golds becomes faster and that of the normals slower. Golds dominate normals in contests over food, which accounts for their advantage.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Territorial male color predicts agonistic behavior of conspecifics in a color polymorphic species.
W. J. Korzan and R. D. Fernald (2007)
Behav. Ecol. 18, 318-323
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)