''Satanoperca jurupari'', the demon eartheater, is a species of

cichlid Cichlids are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Cichliformes. Cichlids were traditionally classed in a suborder, the Labroidei, along with the wrasses ( Labridae), in the order Perciformes, but molecular studies have contradicted this ...

endemic to the

Amazon basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

. It can reach a length of SL.

Feeding behavior and diet

Like some other

Geophagini Geophagini is a tribe of cichlids from the subfamily Cichlinae, the American cichlids. It is the sister taxon to the clade which includes the Cichlasomatini and Heroini. Fishes in the Geophagini are distributed from Panama south to Argentina, it ...

cichlids, the common name 'eartheater' is attributed to their common feeding strategy of sifting through substrate (e.g., sand, small rock, silt) for food, where mouthfuls of substrate are taken up and sorted in the buccal cavity for food items. With the help of gill rakers, food is sorted and substrate is either spat out or sifted out from the operculum. While generally considered to be an

invertivore Feeding is the process by which organisms, typically animals, obtain food. Terminology often uses either the suffixes -vore, -vory, or -vorous from Latin ''vorare'', meaning "to devour", or -phage, -phagy, or -phagous from Greek φαγε ...

, it has been documented as an

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutr ...

in systems that have been disturbed by human activity.

Commercial importance

This species is of little importance to local

commercial fisheries Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often ...

but has grown in popularity among the

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

trade over the past several years.

Breeding and reproduction

As with most cichlids, this species does exhibit parental care. Parents will typically spawn in selected substrate and, after 24 hours, incubate eggs in the buccal cavity where young will seek refuge during the larval stage.

Behavior

This fish is usually peaceful, until the mating season, when it becomes very aggressive.

References

Geophagini Fish described in 1840 Taxa named by Johann Jakob Heckel {{Cichlidae-stub