[Peter Finke]

There is little variance among the offspring of certain parents in paludicola, but in the other respects you are fully right, Jacob. Of course you will have no chance to choose fish from a special locality, and what you get with this really widerspread species paludicola – provided you will not buy it from a private breeder but from trade – is open to fate. The most colourful variants are Terengganu, Kota Bharu or Paka, certainly not Wakaf Tapei. Wakaf Tapei is most interesting for the breeding colour of the female: it’s getting darker, even blackish, not lighter as all others including all the species of western Malaysia. Jörg Vierke therefore wanted to seperate it as a new species; I was able to stop him in the first run, but the issue remains unclear. Maybe he is right nevertheless. But I don’t like this splitter-mentality. At any rate: Wakaf Tapei is interesting, but not in respect of colour or the longishness of the male’s fins. Both is rather dull and short compared with Kota Bharu or Terengganu. There, the males have mostly very long filaments indeed.
Yes, I think that paludicola is widely underrated because the sparkling stripes and borders of the unpaired fins we know of many Parosphromenus are missing. It’s an odd species compared with the other Parosphromenus, sometimes more resembling a Pseudosphromenus, but very interesting in behaviour and in some variants with nice pastel colouring. I like them but I know some friends (f.i. Martin Hallmann) who don’t.
You will be very satisfied with linkei. Again there are local forms that differ. There are forms with a more silvery body and fins and those with a more brownish or even reddish tinge. They can become rather large, more than 6 cm, the long filament of the male’s caudal included. The most striking difference is that some varieties have lots of small red dots around those black side spots, others have not. (Don’t bother about that side spot: some individuals have one, most two, a few three and some even none). Again, in Germany we breed many of these forms in good numbers, but if you buy from trade all you get is “linkei“. Well, that’s enough, it’s a wonderful fish, sparkling in display and rather easy to prapagate (compared to some other licorice). It’s not a clearwater fish. It is found in blackwater as most of the others (except paludicola).
Try linkei if you get it. You will not regret it.