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
To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html
Archives are at http://fins.actwin.com/killietalk/