melanurus, Heros Günther [A.] 1862:288 [Catalogue of the fishes in the British Museum v. 4; ref. 1969] Lake Petén, Guatemala. Lectotype: BMNH 1864.1.26.82. Paralectotypes: BMNH 1864.1.26.78-81 (4). The specific name melanurus [black tail] is an indeclinable noun. Lectotype designated by McMahan et al. 2011:10 [ref. 33481]. •Valid as Cichlasoma melanurus (Günther 1862) -- (Gamboa Pérez 1992:324 [ref. 38704] as melanorum, Conkel 1993:146 [ref. 22949] as melanurum). •Valid as Paraneetroplus melanurus (Günther 1862) -- (McMahan et al. 2010:1298 [ref. 31111] as melanura, McMahan et al. 2011:1 [ref. 33481], Paepke et al. 2014:55 [ref. 33351], Barrientos et al. 2015:4 [ref. 37653]). •Valid as Vieja melanurus (Günther 1862) -- (Burgess 2000:50 [ref. 24818], Kullander in Reis et al. 2003:646 [ref. 27061], McMahan et al. 2015:216 [ref. 33920] as melanura, Říčan et al. 2016:45 [ref. 34357] as melanura, Robins et al. 2018:400 [ref. 35886] as melanura, Moral-Flores et al. 2018:7 [ref. 36020] as melanura, Morgenstern 2018:263 [ref. 36331], Rodríguez-Barrera et al. 2020:45 [ref. 37800] as melanura, Gómez-Martínez et al. 2022:242 [ref. 39506], Barrientos et al. 2023:273 [ref. 41235] as melanura, Chan et al. 2023:148 [ref. 40365], Page et al. 2023:138 [ref. 40505], Quintana 2024:7 [ref. 41186]). Current status: Valid as Vieja melanurus (Günther 1862). Cichlidae: Cichlinae. Distribution: Southern North America and Central America: Atlantic Slope of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico. Established in Florida and Puerto Rico (U.S.A.); introduced in Singapore and Hong Kong (China). Habitat: freshwater.