(Between two lectures in Dresden, Germany):
I strongly recommend not to take the question of exact species determination as serious and important as some seem to take it. You must know that Parosphromenus is a young genus that is developing still today. Many processes of species-differentiation have not yet come to a halt. It is most intelligible that we have quite a few semi-species (a serious concept of the most modern theories of species). The hitherto outcomes from the genetic research on Paros say the same thing: very near to each other, except for P. parvulus and P. ornaticauda (which we aquarists know since long from our close obervations of the behaviour).
The valid scientific names of our fishes do not reflect that situation. This sort of “scientific description” leads to strict differetiations that are not met by the underlying facts. It is most likely that the Paro-nomenclature has to be revised in later times, and I shall not anticipate what the outcome will be when the genetical informations have much more developed and the taxonomical methods have been revised in that light.
No “young search for their father”, as I read here. WE search, and we apply methods which are much too strict for that highly mobile system of evolving species that we see in the Paro-world. Take that as the interesting fact, not those names of some people who mostly have not seen the living fish or even his behaviour.The names are not irrelevant, nobody must mistake bintan for deissneri or alfredi for rubrimontis, but the eager discussion in this threat does not reflect the factual problem: the highly flexible actual evolution of a young genus. There is a remarkable variation within the boundaries of those species, and it can evoke that discussions, but the discussions mus reflect the biological situation in south-east Asia and not the wishful thinking of some aquarists who like to have it clearer than nature is ready to deliver.