Parosphromenus Occur On Island of Pulau Lingga?

[David Jones]

Just saw this blog post about a fantastic looking paro occurring on the island of Pualu Lingga. This is the first reference I’ve seen of paros occurring on this island.

http://cryptoandbetta.blogspot.com/2013/12/paros-sp-pulau-lingga.html

[Peter Finke]

We have indeed not seen Paros from the island of Pulau Lingga hitherto. It is not suprising that there are some occuring. Thinking of the past 10.000 years it was included in the big landmass of Sundaland, now being an island between western Malaysia and Sumatra, just like Bintan or Bangka.

Let’s see if we get more pictures. This one shows the fish not in full but in in frightened colours. The location is new to us; whether the species is too, one such picture is not enough. But many thnak to you, David, for posting it. The Japanese have played since some decades an important role in Paro aquaristics. They found pahuensis or spec. Parengean a little earlier or later than Europeans.

[Bill Little]

Peter — one of the questions I wished to present at the international meeting was for someone (perhaps Horst Linke) to describe “Team Borneo or Borneo Team” as it is sometimes listed and Mr. H. Kishi. We see little pieces of information about them and some of the excellent discoveries they have been involved with over the years, but virtually nothing about their operation appears to be available. I have even gone back to old contacts from my time living in Japan and asked if perhaps they could “google search” in Japanese – virtually nothing comes up.
The reason for my comment is it appears the organization has “boots on the ground” regularly in our area of interest. Their results and discoveries must be documented and recorded somewhere and my thought is perhaps their information is not being shared because of a language barrier. Their information translated and posted to the forum would be of great interest and benefit to all readers and would add an additional and perhaps unique perspective on various Paro species.

[David Jones]

[quote=”Peter Finke” post=5182]We have indeed not seen Paros from the island of Pulau Lingga hitherto. It is not surprising that there are some occurring. Thinking of the past 10.000 years it was included in the big landmass of Sundaland, now being an island between western Malaysia and Sumatra, just like Bintan or Bangka.[/quote]

Very interesting, then, that a new range for this genus can apparently be documented, if this report, from 2013, is substantiated. This raises the question of whether Paros occur on the neighboring smaller islands of Pulau Sebangka and Pulau Singkep, and others, all of which would have been part of Sundaland, prior to the rise in sea level.

[quote=”Peter Finke” post=5182]Let’s see if we get more pictures. This one shows the fish not in full but in in frightened colours. The location is new to us; whether the species is too, one such picture is not enough. But many thnak to you, David, for posting it. The Japanese have played since some decades an important role in Paro aquaristics. They found pahuensis or spec. Parengean a little earlier or later than Europeans.[/quote]

It has been two years since the original post, and there does not appear to be any further update of this Paro in the blog that I can see.
To make matters more interesting, in the same series of posts, there is some reference to another Paro that the author names as a “Bintan” like paro, that does appear to resemble classic bintan form, but I cannot determine if the blog is saying this fish is the same as the first fish pictured, or if it is a separate fish that was collected from Pulau Lingga. If the author is saying it was was a different fish, also collected on Pulau Lingga, then apparently two distinct forms (one more resembling alfredi/tweediei and the other more bintan form), occur on the same island. (Google translator renders the Japanese into an almost unintelligible wording in English, so it’s difficult to make out just exactly what the author is stating – so I am not sure about this last point).

One cannot leave comments on the blog, however the author’s email link is provided and someone could try to contact him via email to ask for any further update or clarifying information. Perhaps this contact should best come from Peter or Horst Linke? who will have the most knowledge about the subject.

[Peter Finke]

David and Bill, I shall inform Horst when he is back from China, since he formerly had good contacts to the Japanese people around Hiroyuki Kishi. In fact, I received my first P. pahuensis some years ago via him from Hiroyuki Kishi who had caught them himself in eastern Borneo.

Their “invisibility” is a great problem. They once had a living website, but it is gone or nearly gone nowadays. I do myself not know whether the “Team Borneo” still exists or not. I had some contacts with them preparing our Paro-book. But it was always difficult.

One of the inhibiting problems is language. I had myself many problems in communication with Hiroyuki and his friends because nobody is capable of good English, let alone German. And I am not of Japanese.

[David Jones]

Peter, sounds good, and looks like you and Horst Linke have the best contacts and knowledge of the entire scene. The blog from which this Paro Pulau Lingga post was taken is active even up to this month, so there ongoing activity by Mr. RM Nakamoto. Forgive me, I am not clear on this – is this Blog and author the same as, or part of “Team Borneo”? (if they even exist at all)?

[Bill Little]

I don’t think we know the answer to that question. The blog is in Japanese and I attempted to run the translator but had little to no success with translation. My guess would be he has no English. I think looking back on the previous research I did there was at least one comment that linked Michael Lo with Team Borneo.

[Peter Finke]

Bill is right, we don’t have sufficient informations.

As far as I know, a Paro-species from Pulau Lingga has not been known hitherto. Neither to Horst nor to Martin nor to Allan nor to Olivier nor to Dietrich no to others, including myself. On the other hand, most experts are sure that there are places not investigated in this respect up to now. Who travels to Pulau Lingga? Nearly nobody. And there are many other small islands around that possibly could reveal Paros if anyone would search for them. If – that would be the precondition – there are small rivers, peat-bogs and some remaining rainforest. They are less in danger to be destroyed for agricultural land and palm oil-plantations because of their difficult attainability and smallness. It’s economically unattractive.

RM Nakamoto is unknown to me. I cannot say whether he belongs to the “Team Borneo” or not. His name has been never mentioned by them. Michael Lo is no member of the “Team Borneo”. He is a Chinese living in Sarawak, the Team-people are Japanese living in Japan. Of course, he knows them and – maybe – has travelled together with them, but he is not part of their organisation.

A pity that our Asian forum is so inactive! We must try to get a personal change there, as soon as possible.

[Peter Finke]

Dear all, there are developments in this Pulau Lingga-affair that are very good indeed. The contact that Bill figured out to Mr. Nakamoto is excellent. I just wrote to Prof. Dr. Peter Beyer from Freiburg university; he is a good friend. I gave his private mailing address to Bill and David. Feel free, to contact him directly.

I think the idea of a meeting in Singapore that has been suggested are excellent and very much hope that they could be realized. Additionally, I am very pleased about the fact that Mr. Nakamoto understands and writes English. For the problem with the Team Borneo-people is that they cannot or at least are not willing to do it. The only one involved I have no contact to up to now is Lawrence Kent; I very much hope this will change now soon.

I shall forward this at the same time privately to four of the five people involved, including Peter Beyer, not to Mr. Nakamoto, I am sorry, whose mailing address is unknown to me.

I am very happy about these possibilities and perspectives. It is one of the moments when I think it was worthwhile to start that project.
Best wishes, Peter

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