This is a very remarkable video shot by Thomas Beu (Frankfurt/Germany). Not only that it shows a rather aggressive male filamentosus somehow fighting a shrimp as big as himself, but the real stage effect is not to be seen directly. Thomas Beu reported that it happened after the camera was put away:
The fish was not only trying to dislodge the shrimp from his own territory (as it seems at the first sight) but it really was trying to steal the eggs the shrimp was carrying beneath its body! After the camera was removed Thomas witnessed this to happen indeed! He hopes it will happen again and he will be able to catch it with the camera.
This is quite remarkable for two reasons: firstly, a Paro male can behave as aggressively as this and is not intimidated by such a fiercely looking invertebrate being with many legs. Secondly, we learn what is probably one of the main food of Paro’s in the wild: eggs (and young?) of shrimps. We always thought that shrimps may play an important role in the natural food of our fish, although most of the species of shrimps that are sold by the aquarium trade are not very well accustomed very soft, very acid blackwaters. But there must be other species living under these conditions that are not sold by the aquarium trade because there is no market for them. This little video seems to indicate that this might really be the case. But I admit that I did not know how big a desire of such food is to be found with the licorice gouramis!
Seeing this we realized that there is no category “behaviour” in our forum. Helene Schoubye acted at once: now we have it!