Undescribed species from Johor

[zahar]

I guess some of us might have heard (or seen the photos) of these Parosphromenus which was recently discovered by local hobbyists in Batu Pahat, Johor.
Batu Pahat in a district north of Pontian (where type locality of Parosphromenus tweediei is located)

At a glance it appears to be similar to Parosphromenus sp “Pontian Besar” and totally different from what we have seen from Peninsular Malaysia.

p/s I just notice the colour pattern (esp dorsal fin) appears similar to Parosphromenus sp “Kota Tinggi’

[helene schoubye]

Hello Zahar.
I am not ‘old’ (in paro-knowledge) enough to have ever seen the sp. which you are mentioning, – but I am sure there are others here who have.
Thank you for sharing this with us, these are very beautiful and good photos.

[Peter Finke]

Zahar, please be more careful in claming “new species”. The only thing I can see on your photos is a special arrangement of blue and red colours. We know from sincere studies with alfredi and tweediei that this can be widely dependent from food. Red tweediei have been suddenly blue only within months, or the other way around, or (most likely) partially mixed in a “new” way; alfredi appeared equally “new”. Some “new” species have been clamed by amateurs. But there is no proof up to the present day.

If there are more hints than colour, say structure and/or behaviour, this might be a different case. But I cannot see those in your photos. And you do not mention them in your words.

Besides: The location that you roughly give, is a rather well-known “old” location. Nearly all places have seen deep changes by human action, including bringing-out of species that have not been found there decades ago (P. nagyi for instance). The primeeval forest is largely gone and partially replaced by plantations; the important blackwater is widely completely gone and partially replaced by clear water that is more mineralized. It is entirely unlikely that now decades later a Paro-species new to science should be found. Your fish are probably colour variants of alfredi and/or tweedie. Whether the cause for this variation is natural or human I cannot say. The latter is more likely.

[zahar]

Thank you sir for the explanation. I did not claim this as a new species but just put it as “undescribed”

[hallmann]

Hi Zahar,

as I told it before to Ackim, the Paros are the old P. sp. “Ayerr Hitam” Dietrich Schaller brought to Walter Foersch in the early 1970.
The location is nearby (only 15km) the place Schaller found them and the colouring and pattern matches the old pictures.

They are no tweedies. In my oppinion Kottelat and Ng only speculate that the form from Ayer Hitam could be tweediei too. As I know (and you Zahar too), P. tweediei only are found around Pontian, wich is more than 70km in the south.
There will be a report in the next IGL “Der Makropode” of the rediscovery of the old P. sp. “Ayer Hitam”, which was labeled wrongly for long times as P. “deissneri”

Very good good news that paros are found again in this area.

Best wishes and well done pictures, Martin

[Author]

Posts