Bill is right in saying that I reported that tweediei was not in trade so far in recent years (since the species was firmly determined/described by Kottelat and Ng in 2005). Kottelat thinks that it was traded before; in fact he stated that it was the most traded Parosphromenus in the eighties and nineties when all were called “deissneri” and we all thought that to be a correct determination. I doubt that. The fish that I saw in 1975 at Dr. Foersch’s home in Munich (and subsequently recieved from him) were similar but probably not identical with the later tweediei. They resembled waht we later called P. spec. Kota Tinggi. Martin Hallmann and I discuss that question in our forthcoming book on “Prachtguramis” (“Which spieces was investigated and bred by Foersch?”). But those fish were private imports by Dietrich Schaller (“Trichopsis schalleri”).
Nevertheless there were private imports of the true (later) tweediei in the nineties; the famous picture by Günter Kopic is the proof. At that time we called them P. spec. Pontian. It is possible that there were commercial imports of that species at that time, too. But this is a presumption; we don’t know it for sure. Undoubtedly, the fish described in 2005 as tweediei was not traded commercially in recent years since 2000.
But there is always a first. Armin was right, these fish are the true tweediei. There is evidence of one of the best experts we have on that species, biologist Prof. Dr. Peter Beyer from Freiburg university in Germany who caught them several times himself in Western Malaysia and now saw them in Freiburg per shops in recent weeks (information by Martin Hallmann). The Dutch wholesaler Ruinemans is one of the big companies which deliver fish to many countries, and so Helene could find them in Kopenhagen, too. Therefore it is quite possible that there was an import to the U.S., too. This is possible because it is a typical scheme that there are many half-grown fish been caught and traded several months after a breeding session.
As Helene’s pictures show there are considerable parts of blue in the red dorsal and anal fins of the males. This is typical: Beyer, at different times in different years found tweediei in their original habitat “orderly” red, and at other occasions nearly all individuals were nearly completely blue! Sometimes, the colours were mixed (as they are here). He supposes this to be a question of their diets, but the thing is not yet completely clear.
Anyway, we have tweediei now in trade, and Armin is to be praised that he told us this news. Maybe, the information from the U.S. was true also, but the fish seem to be sold out. Or is there anybody who bought them and could tell us: tweediei or not?