Hello Peter,
I like the way how the parosphromenus-project is trying to go beyond just the private keeping and breeding of these fish. It does seem like a quite ambitious network around this genus or these genera.
Who initiated these genetic investigations and/or payed for them? I am assuming that this type of scientific work may not be free of charge.
Only recently I started wondering about a few questions loosely related to this subject here, concerning the scientific work with and around new or known species. Maybe this is a good place to ask.
For example:
– Who decides, when it is time for a newly discovered species to be scientifically described as such…
– …and by whom it is to be described?
– Who decides, what name it is to be officially given?
– What is it that determines an official, scientifically acknowledged status of a description/species?
– Are these official descriptions of species being checked on a regular basis, compared to recently collected samples and maybe corrected or updated if necessary?
– Are the fish in captivity regularly compared to wild representatives of their species to notice any possible genetical or phenotypical changes in either population?
Maybe this is all common knowledge but I just haven’t come across it yet.
If these questions appear not to be fitting in this thread, maybe they can be moved to a different place within the forum.
Thanks for your time and thoughts!
Just trying to learn 🙂
Gregor