P. tweediei, The Part 1 of the report from the recent expedition by Yuhan Ji and Leo Dai (S.J.D. [N. J. B.]) to West Malaysia and Sarawak.
With Mohd Lokman, we checked the habitats of tweediei in Johor.
The fish can still be found, but in very limited areas in southern Johor. To search for Parosphromenus in West Malaysia is often a sad experience. The trip for tweediei is no exception. The original habitats were either destroyed or severely damaged by oil palm plantation. We have to go inside the plantations to look for remaining possibilities. None of the three locations are really original, they are just better preserved waters survived and recovered from the oil palm plantation. Not surprisingly, the population density turned out to be quite low. Wild tweediei is a beautiful middle sized species with extraordinary intensive red color on unpaired fins. It looks very similar to its close relatives in West Malaysia, alfredi, rubrimontis and several other not yet scientifically described local forms. And they might also share a similar fate. Consider the tragedy happened to the habitat of alfredi, which is just around 100KM away, we are not sure how long can tweediei further survive in the wild.
