[Killietalk] "Where Have All The Killies Gone"

[Aspinwalln at aol_com]

At the suggestion of Wright Huntley I would like to start a new discussion 
thread entitled "Where Have All The Killies Gone".
In 1998, Jack Heller, Tomas Hrbek, and I brought back a sizeable collection 
of killies from Cameroon some of which we propagated and distributed widely to 
the hobby. These killies are referenced as "HAH 98". All of us are concerned 
about maintaining killies in the hobby. We are all familiar with the scenario 
of  a given rare species/location becoming hot, then becoming widely 
distributed, then becoming common, then falling out of favor, and then disappearing from 
the hobby. Once a given species/location become extirpated in the hobby it 
necessitates someone going back to Cameroon or elsewhere and re-collecting-- a 
very expensive proposition. In my one trip to Cameroon and three trips to 
Gabon, I have spent about $5,000 per trip.
So, I would like to conduct a survey of killie keepers on the Web to see how 
many of our collections are still extant in the hobby. So, what follows below 
is a partial list of the species that we distributed from our 1998 Cameroon 
collecting trip. (I am not listing the various species/locations of 
Chromaphyosemions).  I would ask that anyone who has one or more of these locations to 
respond to this email. I will keep track of the data and will summarize it 
shortly. To show that I, myself, am far from perfect in maintaining killies in the 
hobby, I report that of the 12 species/ locations listed below I am presently 
maintaining only four of them after 5 years............Here goes.............

Fundulopanchax mirabilis moense Nfeitok HAH 98
Fundulopanchax mirabilis moense Nguti HAH 98
Fundulopanchax mirabilis moense Bakebe HAH 98
Fundulopanchax mirabilis moense Ayong HAH 98
Fundulopanchax mirabilsi moense Ayong II HAH 98
Fundulopanchax cinnamoneum Bolo Moboka HAH 98
Fundulopanchax gardneri lacustris Lake Ejagham HAH 98
Fundulopanchax gardneri mamfensis Eyumojock HAH 98
Fundulopanchax gardneri mamfensis Ebinsi HAH 98
Aphyosemion raddai Eseka Road HAH 98
Aphyosemion cameronense halleri Ambam HAH 98
Aphyosemion cameronense cameronense Nsessoum HAH 98

Any comments about this survey and about species maintainence would be 
welcome. 
Nevin in St. Louis

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