Parosphromenus Project Award 2016/2017 for special achievements

The Parosphromenus Project regularly awards a prize for special achievements that support the aims of the project. The award is symbolic; it has no material form. The award for the years 2016 und 2017 will be presented following suggestions from the members of the steering group to the biologist and philosopher

Mr. Wentian Shi (Guangzhou/China) and the N.J.B. Team from China

In the years 2016 and 2017, Wentian Shi and his teammates Yuhan Ji and Jianhui Dai have earned special merits. In particular, they have thoroughly tried to rediscover the species Parosphromenus deissneri, endemic to the Indonesian island of Bangka, which was already described in 1859 by the Dutch ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker as the first species of the genus.

In recent decades, many more species of the genus Parosphromenus have been discovered in Malaysia and Indonesia and several found their way also into the tanks of the hobbyists, often falsly determined as „deissneri“. There were only very few private imports which actually referred correctly to this species. Unfortunately we were not able to preserve them and their offsprings in the aquaria.

Therefore, Wentian Shi and the Team N.J.B. in the year 2016 visited all the locations known by literature, internet and oral communication, of this species on Bangka and thoroughly searched for it. Unfortunately, they found all the former habitats now irretrievably destroyed, without rainforest, without black water, often even dried out completely, without water at all, cultivated, or (as in other places) prepared to serve as agricultural areas for the cultivation of oil palm trees.

In consequence, we had to get used to the idea that this first-described species of symbolic importance, P. deissneri, which had meanwhile become extinct also in the aquaria, was lost forever.

Wentian Shi, however, did not accept that as fact. After extensive discussions, internet and map studies, he and Yuhan Ji travelled, later joined by the Team Borneo, once again to Bangka in the spring of 2017 making the attempt to search for last relics of the once extensive wet virgin forests of the island, which had never been visited by experts so far because of their remoteness or lack of roads and paths. This time, at one of these distant and limited places, they have, in a small population, actually rediscovered the true P. deissneri. Wentian Shi brought some young animals alive to Europe, passed them on to good breeders or raised them himself, and a few weeks ago also got offspring of them. All the friends of the species and the whole genus have been very relieved by this outcome.

For this outstanding achievement, the Parosphromenus Project awards him and the whole N.J B.-team from China this honorary prize.

The steering group of the Parosphromenus Project

(P. Chaloupka/Pilsen, R. Eggli/Basel, P. Finke/Bielefeld, B. Bussler/Hamburg, Chr. Koppitz/Halle,                                            H. Schoubye/Kopenhagen, B. Wilden/Detmold)