Netzgeist

Wirklich schön ist, was Heiko Bleher in der ihm eigenen Deutlichkeit auf apistogramma.com zu diesen beiden Erstbeschreibungen sagt:

Hi, all of you apisto freaks…

this is Heiko Bleher just back from Apistogramma and dwarf cichlid lectures, from biotopes in nature and Discus, Angel and mates, as well as aquatic plants and their biotopes and more seminars in Romania where the aquarium hobby is really picking up…

I am writing to you all and Mark, because I read this thread and also have the Vertrabrate Zoology issue and read the two descriptions, and wanted to tell you all (if it is of interest), the following:
1. The mouth brooding Apistogramma I collected and discovered it in August of 1997 and already the same year we, that is W. Mikshovski in Wuerzbug, Germany breed them, and the male had the young in the moth. This was (to my knowledge) the very first discovery of a mouth brooding apisto and my discovery. And Uwe forgot altogether to mention that (as many other things…). The specimen I had grew to 10plus cm and was the largest apisto I have ever seen. And what the group name is concerned, I agree with mark, but even go further: it should only be applied when we really know more. At this point it makes no sence to write extensively about that.

2. The description of the D. gladicauda is a real joke (and I told the editor of the magazine that already - if a peer review had been one for sure it would have never come to a scientific description). I collected hundreds of D. filamentosus with a single upper and even lower sword (normally they have two, as we all know, but there are many such exceptions in nature). If we start to give fishes like this new names, we will have 100,000 species and no one can identify anyone anymore.
Besides: the Venzuela scientists had classified it already as D. filamentosus and those (normally with two swords) live in the type locality described for the one-sword-Dicrossus.
And the specimens for the description with a single sword were only holotype and 4 paratypes. Very poor. I still cannot believe, being an editor of a scientific journal for almost 20 years now (www.aqua-aquapress.com), that such things happen… and specially from pseudo-ichthyologists…

So much so good and all of you keep up the good work,

always
Heiko

Na denn, das gibt ja Diskussionsstoff ohne Ende. Oder Futter für die Aufreger… oder was weiß weiß ich. :-)

Marc (immer noch ohne Netz und Telefon)