A computer system for identifying Tanganyikan cichlids using meristic and descriptive data accumulated in the literature

摘要

The Identification System for Tanganyikan Cichlids (ISTC) is a computer system that identifies the species of Tanganyikan cichlids based on five meristic and three descriptive characters. An index I sub(i) is proposed as the degree of proximity between an unidentified specimen and species i. For calculating this index, the system allows the use of the following: (i) the range data including the largest and smallest values of meristic characters; and (ii) the meristics, between which the correlations are unknown. Therefore, a large amount of data accumulated in literature can be used. This system is sufficiently practical, although the methods are simplified and mathematically coarse.