Re: AKA Convention tanks - Asian killies

["unclescott" <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

> >What do think might be the problem? I really could use the info on any
other
> >genus of Asian killies beside Aplocheilus.
> >Thanks again.
> >Michael

Since the rice fish have been separated from killies (many of us still enjoy
them as honorary killies) our killie books (Lazara's KMI, Huber's works)
don't list any other genus other than Aplocheilus and Aphanius-more recently
called Lebias by some. The species of Aplocheilus often have a pretty wide
distribution so maybe the Asian killies speciated differently from some of
the South Americans and the Africans. (Take a look at Dr. Huber's book on
the evolution and spread of killies. Sorry, don't have the title handy.) On
the other hand, while some Aphanias are widely distributed in regions
prehistorically touching the Tethys Sea (sp?) region, some Turkish and
Iranian species are quite limited in range. In Jordan, Aph. sirhani is found
in one oasis. The species in Algeria - apodus - is perilously close to
extinction and most of the Mediterranean Aphanius and Valencia are at great
risk too.

Link on to Dr. Huber's Killidata site. I think it can be linked to via the
AKA site. Do a search for work by a Dr. B.W. Coad relating to Aphanius. The
AKA Journal had a neat article or two by him a while back. The Wildekamp
series published by the AKA (and other articles by Wildekamp) will also be
useful. The KMI bibliography would be another starting point.

Relect species in odd corners of the African rain forest are happened upon.
Bets are that South America has more undecribed species of killie than maybe
all other areas combined. Who knows? Maybe in an odd corner of eastern
Indonesia or some place else something different may turn up. However much
of Asia has been historically so much more intensively settled by humans
than much of South America's or Africa' rainforests, that researchers (and
even the intrepid hobbyist) might be more tempted to go to those other
continents if they are looking for new killies. In really remote Asian areas
there are a lot of anabandid types (many times very cool fish in their own
right) which seem to have filled a lot of the nitches filled by killies
elsewhere. Political conditions and (DNR type) collecting rules in some
countries also rule out collecting.

All the best!

Scott



---------------
See http://www.aka.org/pages/killietalk/subkillietalk.html to unsubscribe
Join the AKA at http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html