Animal coloration has many functions, and fishes are noted among vertebrates for presenting a wide variety of color patterns. Although in marine fishes the relationship between body coloration and behavioral context is well documented, there's not much information about freshwater fishes. Here we describe color patterns displayed by the dwarf cichlid Apistogramma hippolytae and suggest that these patterns are dependent on different social and behavioral settings. Field observations were conducted underwater in a pond in Central Amazonia, Brazil. We recorded six body coloration patterns related to seven different kinds of behavioral activities: foraging, resting, reproductive and agonistic displays, aggression (attacking and fleeing) and parental care. Changes in coloration occur rapidly and take only a few seconds. Females on parental care exhibited a unique pattern that are more persistent and probably manifests more slowly. In the shallow and clear waters of the natural environment of this dwarf cichlid, color communication seems to constitute an efficient way to display information about individual mood, social status and reproductive readiness, contributing to minimize loss of energy in unnecessary interactions.Coloração animal tem diferentes funções, e os peixes se destacam entre os vertebrados por apresentarem uma grande diversidade de padrões de cores. Embora se conheça relativamente bem a relação entre coloração e contexto comportamental para peixes marinhos, pouco se sabe para os peixes de água doce. Nós descrevemos os padrões de coloração de um ciclídeo amazônico, Apistogramma hippolytae, e sugerimos como esses padrões são dependentes das características sociais e comportamentais. Realizamos observações subaquáticas utilizando mergulho livre em campo durante o dia em uma lagoa na Amazônia Central. Nós caracterizamos seis padrões de coloração associados a sete comportamentos diferentes: alimentação, repouso, displays sexual e agonístico, agressão (ataque e fuga) e cuidado parental. As mudanças de coloração levam apenas alguns segundos. Fêmeas em cuidado parental exibem um padrão exclusivo, cuja mudança é mais lenta. No ambiente natural desse ciclídeo, locais rasos com águas claras, a comunicação por coloração pode ser um sistema eficiente de comunicar o estado motivacional individual, status social e disposição para reprodução, possivelmente contribuindo para minimizar a perda de energia com interações desnecessárias.

The reproduction trade-off for an animal is a conflicting choice in which resources (e.g., time and/or energy) allocated to one reproduction trait (e.g., parental care) become unavailable to other traits (e.g., future reproduction events). Here, we tested three hypotheses related to the parental care of the Amazonian dwarf cichlid Apistogramma hippolytae in its natural habitat of Central Amazonia: (1) brood-caring females have a lower feeding frequency than individuals that are not involved in this behavior; (2) females that spend more time on nest defense have lower feeding rates; and (3) females can recognize the species that present the greatest danger to its offspring and move farther from the nest to chase away these piscivorous fishes. We also described for the first time the reproductive behavior (including courtship) and parental care of this species. The results showed that maternal care produces a reduction in the rate of feeding of mothers, a greater amount of time is spent chasing invaders away from the nest, and reproductive females are able to distinguish species-specific predators. These observations support the hypotheses of this study and also suggest a trade-off between current and future reproduction events.

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