I am back from lecturing at a foreign university.
And I am happy about the development of our Forum. In recent time the discussions have become more lively and more substantial. Very good!
As the fish without a clear location are concerned: That’s one of the problems of Paro-aquaristics. If I see our latest censuses the share of fish without location has risen again. There were some years (especially 2008/2009) when Horst Linke made his investigative tours on Sumatra and detected spec. Danau Rasau (now gunawani), spec. Langgam (now phoenicurus), and quite some others (specc. Dua, Sungaibertam, Pematunglumut, etc.) when the share of our fish with location rose sonsiderably. We interpreted that as our stock becoming more valuable; the share of the traded fish went down. But we were unable to breed all those forms, some having come in very small numbers: four or five fish; if one of them is ill (maybe the only female), then your prospects fall considerably.
Today, the share of traded fish has grown again; the new spring census will show it clearly.
But today I should be more careful with my interpretative wording. Although it is very good if you have fish with a clear locality, this does not mean automatically (1) that you know the species (often it’s undescribed from over there, it’s a bintan-type, and then you are as knowing as before), and it does not mean (2) that your fish are of lesser beauty than others.
Lennart’s “blue line” are typical blue-lines of the type of the first shipments we received in 2005/2006, with brilliant colours (more brilliant that those of spec. Sentang) and whitish and rather longish filaments of the ventrals. It’s mostly the ventrals in which the other imports of so-called blue-lines differed. There is a clear distinction from harveyi which always has a broader black rim at the tail’s end, but the colours are similarly brilliant.
Unfortunately, I did not photograph those old imports because I am not a fish-photographer. There are a few old pictures some better most of lesser quality. It’s a good suggestion to place them together, but often we don’t know the photographer and in other cases we alck the rights to do that. As a website which takes that problem of the rights serious (most do not) this creates some problems. But perhaps we find a solution.
But generally speaking: One reason why Paro-aquaristics is as interesting as it is is the fact that there are still many unsolved problems. We have many whishes what would be best: to have all the forms genetically investigated, all clear species named, to have exact knowlegde about the distributions, and so on. But this is wishful thinking. Slowly, we approach that Holy land of satisfied wishes, but at the meantime we must be content with many unclear forms. But beautiful forms, Lennart, just as your “blue-lines”!