Iquitos, Peru.
The Heros' in the exporters outdoor ponds look fantastic:
and so do the Rio Itaya, this time of the year:
So who is crazy enough to leave this for 12,5 hours downstream on the Rio Amazonas in this "Rapido",
just to have loads of challenges with police, papers, immigration, costs, documents, transport on land and water, housing etc. etc., and then another 12,5 hours upstream in the same boat a few days later?
Well, I know him...
The Apistogramma sp. "Kelleri" was discovered in 2006. I went to Leticia, Colombia, in 2008 with Mike Wise and Julio Melgar to find it. Some time before we arrived there, a lot of the small streams dried out (and the fish moved), and even if the water was back, we couldn't find any of the desired fishes...
After that I have kept Apistogramma sp. "Kelleri", bred it and studied wild caught specimens in my tanks, but I had not given up the dream of collecting it in the wild and see the habitat.
The internet connection here in Iquitos is not good enough to up- or download a lot of pictures, so I'll make this short (I'll publish a small report at my website later, with a few more pictures...)
I travelled from Iquitos, Peru to Leticia, Colombia, last Friday, with two peruvian fishermen friends, and in this small quebrada:
we found my favorite Copella: Copella vilmae
and amazingly: these too:
Apistogramma sp. "Kelleri" with colors I have never seen before!
One of the females was mouthbrooding in the bag!:
In another small stream, 3 kilometers away, we found the more "usual" colorform, with red spots in the face:
Quite amazing to see these two so different colorforms of the same species!
As I have kept the latter form earlier, I only gave priority to bring with me a few of the "yellow" colorform.
It would be interesting to know how much the difference in color is influenced by environmental factors (if at all) or if it's purely genetics ..... of course, it has to be a kind of combination of the two.
So: Back after a 5 days trip which only resulted in 1,5 days of collecting, tired, bankrupt, with loads of physical memories from water bound and flying insects, but with memories of nice people I met, quite a few beautiful fishes in the bags, and happy, happy happy!
The Heros' in the exporters outdoor ponds look fantastic:
and so do the Rio Itaya, this time of the year:
So who is crazy enough to leave this for 12,5 hours downstream on the Rio Amazonas in this "Rapido",
just to have loads of challenges with police, papers, immigration, costs, documents, transport on land and water, housing etc. etc., and then another 12,5 hours upstream in the same boat a few days later?
Well, I know him...
The Apistogramma sp. "Kelleri" was discovered in 2006. I went to Leticia, Colombia, in 2008 with Mike Wise and Julio Melgar to find it. Some time before we arrived there, a lot of the small streams dried out (and the fish moved), and even if the water was back, we couldn't find any of the desired fishes...
After that I have kept Apistogramma sp. "Kelleri", bred it and studied wild caught specimens in my tanks, but I had not given up the dream of collecting it in the wild and see the habitat.
The internet connection here in Iquitos is not good enough to up- or download a lot of pictures, so I'll make this short (I'll publish a small report at my website later, with a few more pictures...)
I travelled from Iquitos, Peru to Leticia, Colombia, last Friday, with two peruvian fishermen friends, and in this small quebrada:
we found my favorite Copella: Copella vilmae
and amazingly: these too:
Apistogramma sp. "Kelleri" with colors I have never seen before!
One of the females was mouthbrooding in the bag!:
In another small stream, 3 kilometers away, we found the more "usual" colorform, with red spots in the face:
Quite amazing to see these two so different colorforms of the same species!
As I have kept the latter form earlier, I only gave priority to bring with me a few of the "yellow" colorform.
It would be interesting to know how much the difference in color is influenced by environmental factors (if at all) or if it's purely genetics ..... of course, it has to be a kind of combination of the two.
So: Back after a 5 days trip which only resulted in 1,5 days of collecting, tired, bankrupt, with loads of physical memories from water bound and flying insects, but with memories of nice people I met, quite a few beautiful fishes in the bags, and happy, happy happy!
