That's the trouble with common names. In English the peacock cichlid is Cichla ocellaris; which can be compared to the Oscar as the jaguar can be compared to the ocelot. Alan
I've never been able to figure out why the species is called an Oscar. The best I could come up with is that it is derived from a corruption of the specific name ocellatus. They are (or at least used to be) commonly called velvet cichlids as well, which is much easier to figure out!
Oscars are in more ways intresting. In the USA several feral populations have been established ( South Florida, Hawaii and Puerto Rico ) and a small intresting fact is that there even is a connection with zoos. The first animals released on Hawaii for sport fishing seemed to have come from Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco in 1952 ! A few years later ( 1958 ) the Hawaii Division of Fish and Game released them even in larger numbers !
