Adult male P. lutea from the Jagbudi River, Khed. © Ralf Britz

A new barb of the genus Pethia is described in the Journal of Threatened Taxa this week. Continue reading »

Invasive mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki, in the Ripoll. © Matt Ford

Check out our video of native cyprinids Barbus meridionalis Risso 1827 and Squalius laietanus Doadrio, Kottelat & de Sostoa 2007. Both species are endemic to a few river basins in northeaster Spain and southern France, in this case the Ripoll River, a tributary within the larger Bésos drainage close to Barcelona. This is a typical Mediterranean river which flows more strongly during winter and spring and contains less water during the dry summer period.

Drought conditions can also extend between years, and a dry winter in 2013/2014 has caused the native fishes to become concentrated in permanent pools. Also present in these refuge habitats are the invasive mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki Girard 1859, pumpkinseed sunfish Lepomis gibbosus (Linnaeus 1758), and red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii (Girard 1852), all of which were introduced from the United States in the twentieth century and now represent a serious ecological issue throughout Spain.

This is our first attempt at editing a video with captions, music, etc., so please bear with it!

[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfQn9LgUXCk]

As previously covered here on SF, on May 24th 2014, local community events will be taking place at 250 locations worldwide to celebrate the first World Fish Migration Day. Continue reading »

Acantopsis dialuzona, Terengganu state, Peninsular Malaysia. © Matt Ford

The ‘Global Freshwater Fish BioBlitz’ kicked off on World Wetlands Day to engage nature lovers in freshwater fish conservation.

The Freshwater Fish Specialist Group (FFSG), of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Wetlands International (IUCN), has joined forces with other international groups, chiefly the World Wildlife Fund, Conservation International, FishBase, the Fisheries Society of the British Isles and the Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network, to introduce this new global initiative. The BioBlitz project is designed by iNaturalist.org and hosted on the FFSG website www.iucnffsg.org/bioblitz.

People from around the world, whether anglers, photographers, students or nature lovers, are invited to upload photographs of freshwater fishes observed in their natural habitat, with details of where and when they saw them.  Volunteers with expertise in fish taxonomy will serve as curators to identify and verify the species to ensure the data is research-grade.  The information has the potential to assist scientists to describe new species, help assess the risk of extinction for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, can track the spread of invasive species and can be exported to freely accessible online data archives, such as Encyclopedia of Life.

Phoxinus phoxinus, UK. © Jack Perks

The launch of the project also highlights the importance of freshwater fish for the protection of internationally important habitats. “More than three-quarters of Ramsar’s Wetlands of International Importance, or Ramsar Sites, are entirely or partly freshwater sites, and, of those, over 30 percent became Ramsar Sites because of their important fish species” said Christopher Briggs, Secretary General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. “The more data we have on the species present in our wetlands, the better we can manage them. The Freshwater Fish BioBlitz will provide a wealth of essential information for managing our wetlands and their fish species.”

Projects like this are needed as Will Turner, Senior Vice President for the Moore Center for Science and Oceans at Conservation International, explains “Freshwater fishes may be the most endangered group of vertebrates, with a third of all species threatened with extinction due to overfishing, pollution, habitat loss and fragmentation, alien invasive species and climate change.”

Lentipes sp. in the Philippines. © Odyssey

“The BioBlitz is our way of bringing the power of crowdsourcing to freshwater fish conservation,” said Michele Thieme, senior freshwater conservation scientist at World Wildlife Fund. “Wildlife monitoring is vital to conservation, since we can’t protect species unless we know where they live and what threats they might be facing. Engaging the public all over the world will help us identify more species in more places than we possibly could alone.”

“It is a huge task – with over 15,000 freshwater fish species, and numbers continually growing,” said Dr Richard Sneider, Global Chair for the FFSG. “More than 300 new fish species are described every year on average, so the more people ‘on the ground’ carrying out observations and recording what they have seen, the better.”

The Global Freshwater Fish Bioblitz is inspired by a similar project for amphibians, which the Amphibian Specialist Group began more than two years ago. “We’re hoping to mimic the success of the Global Amphibian BioBlitz, which has been embraced by citizen-scientists throughout the world,” said Sneider. “In only two years they’ve recorded more than 1,500 taxa and even discovered a new species. I’d say that’s a pretty good start.”

Sahyadria denisonii is among the world’s most popular aquarium fishes. © Hristo Hristov

The iconic red-line torpedo barb and a related species are moved from the paraphyletic grouping Puntius to new genus Sahyadria in today’s issue of the Journal of Threatened Taxa. Continue reading »

Considering that freshwater habitats contain just 0.3 % of global water resources they are home to a surprising diversity of species with around 15,000 described to date, a figure which represents almost half of all known fish taxa and approximately 25 % of all vertebrates.

Continue reading »

Adult male individual of O. wolasi. © Hans-Georg Evers

The previously unidentified ricefish known to aquarists as Oryzias sp. ‘Kendari’, O. sp. ‘neon’ or O. sp. ‘Sulawesi’ is given an official scientific name in the latest issue of Copeia, the journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists. Continue reading »

S. maculidorsalis is easily-recognised by presence of small black spots on the dorsal surface of the head and trunk in both males and females. © Odyssey

Freshwater gobies of the genus Stiphodon have become increasingly popular aquarium inhabitants in recent years, but considerable confusion has surrounded the identity of some commonly-traded species due to a number of factors. Continue reading »

I’ve just returned (more’s the pity) from a month pottering around Malaysia in search of freshwater fishes and other interesting stuff, and will be posting a series of blogs about the trip since there’s far too much material to cram into a single piece.

There are around 6000 hi-res photos plus interviews and videos to check and process so for the time being here are a few images off the phone-cam, some of which were taken by my wife. First report to follow in a day or two and will feature a couple of very special fishes.

Hope these whet the appetite ’til then…

…

Matt

Aquaculture Technologies Pte Ltd., Singapore is one of Southeast Asia’s most important exporters of wild-collected fish. We were lucky enough to be granted an exclusive in-depth interview with owner Patrick Yap which will be published soon.

© Matt Ford

Mouth of the blackwater Sungai (river) Ru Rebah as it enters the South China Sea, Johor state, Peninsular Malaysia.

© Aiste Ford

Kayaking in the mangrove forest, Tioman Island. Feet not mine…

© Aiste Ford

Dodgy bridge on the Sungai Mentawak, Tioman Island. Backside mine.

© Aiste Ford

Checking the push net.

© Matt Ford

‘Puntius‘ johorensis

© Matt Ford

Hill stream near Sekayu, Terengganu where we collected around 20 species.

© Aiste Ford

Homaloptera parclitella

© Matt Ford

Sungai Berang, Terengganu

© Matt Ford

Doryichthys sp. male carrying eggs

© Matt Ford

Ever fancied a trip to Russia? The Unitex group of companies is once again arranging a series of international aquascaping competitions this year for which preliminary registration is now open.

Finalists will be invited to attend the prize events in Moscow and St. Petersburg which will be judged by a number of high-profile names from the aquarium world, while Dennerle and JBL provide sponsorship.

To be in with a chance you’ll need to submit an application alongside four photos of your aquarium by the end of September or beginning of October as follows, depending on your preferred competition:

DENNERLE Nano Cube Contest 2013 – http://all4aquarium.ru/en/events/dennerle-nanocontest-2013

To enter the contest you should fill in an application form (http://all4aquarium.ru/en/node/4817) before September 30, 2013, including your personal information, plus information about and four photos of your aquarium.

The grand final will take place in Moscow, at the ‘Days of High Aquaristic’ event between November 15-17, 2013 with finalists receiving free accomodation in Moscow as well as a contribution towards travel expenses.

The prize pool is 2,300 EUR which will be distributed as follows:

1st place: Gift certificate for 900 EUR
2nd place: Gift certificate for 700 EUR
3rd place: Gift certificate for 500 EUR
Audience award: Gift certificate for 200 EUR

Judging team: Chris Lukhaup (Germany), Oliver Knott (Germany), Stefan Walter (Germany), Stefan Hummel (Germany), Sergey Kochetov (Russia), Dmitry Parshin (Russia), Olga Uzhegova (Russia), Sergiusz Kowalew (Poland), Grigoriy Polishchuk (Ukraine), Natalia Romanovich (Belarus)

JBL Tropical Biotope Contest 2013 – http://all4aquarium.ru/en/events/jbl-biotope-contest-2013

To enter the contest you fill in an application form (http://all4aquarium.ru/en/node/4816) before October 10, 2013, including your personal information, plus information about and four photos of your aquarium.

From October 10 to October 20 members of the jury and internet users will vote and 21 finalists will be chosen. The final will be held at the ZooSphere exhibition in St. Petersburg between November 20-23, and travel expenses and accommodation will be partially or completely covered for international finalists.

The prize pool is 2,300 EUR which will be distributed as follows:

1st place: Gift certificate for 900 EUR
2nd place: Gift certificate for 700 EUR
3rd place: Gift certificate for 500 EUR
Audience award: Gift certificate for 200 EUR

Judging team: Heiko Blessin (Germany), Heiko Bleher (Italy), Chris Lukhaup (Germany), Ivan Mikolji (Venezuela), George Fear (USA), Piotr Kierzkovski (Poland), Sergey Kochetov (Russia), Elena Mazurek (Russia), Alexey Malyshev (Russia)

Eastern European Planted Aquarium Design Contest 2013 – http://all4aquarium.ru/en/events/plant-design-contest-2013

To enter this contest you should fill in the application form before September 30, 2013, including your personal information, plus information about and four photos of your aquarium.

Prize pool is 6000 EUR and winners will be announced on 17th November 2013, during the ‘Days of High Aquaristic’ event in Moscow.

This contest is restricted to entrants from the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine.

Best of luck!