Biotopes of Cameroon | Aphyosemion ahli | Ahl’s Killifish

Chris Englezou Biotope, Biotopes of Africa Leave a Comment

Aphyosemion ahli Myers, 1933 is a Lower Guinea endemic found in the Wouri River in western Cameroon and southward to the Rio Benito drainage system in western Equatorial Guinea. It occurs in swamps and quiet parts of brooks under forest cover in the coastal lowlands (Wildekamp et al. 1986). It also inhabits flooded pools in the coastal rain forest and is usually found in shallow water; it is a benthopelagic, non-migratory species. (IUCN Redlist 2010) This individual was collected from a coastal swamp biotope north of the city of Douala in Littoral, Cameroon, within the Mungo River drainage area. The Mungo …

Biotopes of Brasil | Rio Xingu, home of the Zebra Pleco

C.E. Fish Essentials Biotope, Biotopes of South America, Uncategorised Leave a Comment

The Zebra pleco Hypancistrus zebra is endemic to the middle of Brazil’s Rio Xingu (pronounced shin goo) and is among the list of catfish species at risk from the Belo Monte dam. It lives at a depth where the surroundings are, at best, pretty gloomy, if not completely dark. It lives in the cracks, gaps and natural caves found in the very specific type of rock found in the river. This is dark brown to black hard igneous rock that, in shallower water, is set in tan-coloured sand. There is very little submerged wood, there are virtually no plants and …

Biotopes of Sierra Leone | Epiplatys annulatus| The Clown Killifish

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The Clown Killifish or Banded Panchax (Epiplatys annulatus) is a species of fish in the family Nothobranchiidae, an African rivuline, native to freshwater habitats in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in West Africa. (Fishbase) The climate across its range is hot and wet with a pronounced wet season between April-May and October-November), and most rivers tend to run perennially. The water is generally warm, soft and acidic but much primary rainforest has been destroyed with surviving pockets existing as protected forest reserves in many cases. Kasewe is one such reserve in Moyamba district, Sierra Leone, and comprises an area of …

Biotopes of Sierra Leone | Erpetoichthys calabaricus | The Ropefish

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Ecology The Ropefish, also known as the Reedfish is the only species in the genus Erpetoichthys, and is an incredibly hardy, nocturnal species. Due to its poor vision, the Ropefish relies on its excellent sense of smell to locate food. It’s closely related to the Polypterus genus and both these are some of the last surviving relatives of very ancient species. Fossils of earlier relatives have been found that date back to the Triassic Period, which occurred during the early development of the dinosaurs, more than 200 million years ago. This species is a freshwater species also found in brackish …

Biotopes of Cameroon | Pantodon buchholzi, the African butterflyfish

C.E. Fish Essentials Biotope, Biotopes of Africa Leave a Comment

The freshwater butterflyfish Pantodon buchholzi (Peters, 1886) are found in lightly acidic, water bodies in West Africa. Typically, they are found in habitats with slow current or standing water with high amounts of surface foliage and/or riparian vegetation for cover. They have been observed in Lake Chad, the Congo Basin, throughout lower Niger, Cameroon, Ogooue, and upper Zambezi, and have also been seen in the Niger Delta, lower Ogooue, and in the lower Cross River. The Eastern distribution limit of the species is reported to be the Ouémé River in Benin, although it is also noted to be found in …

Biotopes of Cameroon| Benitochromis nigrodorsalis

C.E. Fish Essentials Biotope, Biotopes of Africa Leave a Comment

Benitochromis is a small genus of cichlid fishes that are endemic to riverine and lake habitats in Middle Africa (Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, including the island of Bioko). Several of these species were originally assigned to the genus Chromidotilapia. The genus Benitochromis was erected by Dr Anton Lamboj in 2001 and currently contains six species: B. finleyi, B. batesii, B. conjunctus, B. nigrodorsalis, B. ufermanni and B. riomuniensis. It is also possible that there are a number of other Benitochromis species yet to be described. Benitochromis nigrodorsalis is a benthopelagic, non-migratory species typically occupying habitats with a pH range from …

Biotopes of Spain| The biotope of the Samaruc and the Fartet

Marcelo Fernandez Biotope, Conservation Leave a Comment

The family Cyprinodontidae, widely distributed in Africa and America, has only three representations in the Iberian fauna, namely, Valencia Hispanica (Valenciennes, 1826) or “Samaruc”, Aphanius Iberus (Valenciennes, 1846) or “Fartet” and finally the Aphanius baeticus (Doadrios, Carmona & Fernández-Delgado, 2002) or “Salinete”; in this article we will focus ourselves on the first two species. We could say that the emotional charge of this biotope is impressive, two species in a small region so abused in the past that nowadays great efforts are made to avoid their extinctions; in all honesty, being able to see these small fish in their natural …

Biotopes of Argentina | Fishes of the Iguazu Falls

Marcelo Fernandez Biotope, Biotopes of South America Leave a Comment

Years ago, when I went to this beautiful province for the first time, I asked myself which fish would inhabit the Iguazu Falls, although I like all the fish, my thoughts were oriented (as always) towards the aquarium fish. A little information about this pearl of the Argentine north. The province of Misiones has an area of ​​29,801km² and is the second largest in the provinces of the Argentine Republic, integrating the Brasilia massif through the missionary plateau. Its rocks contain important amounts of iron, it decomposes and forms part of the soil, giving it the characteristic red color (see …

Biotoping for charity at the Fish Barn

Chris Englezou Biotope, Chris Englezou, Events Leave a Comment

This Sunday just passed I was invited by the guys over at the well known aquatic store The Fish Barn in Crawley, West Sussex to join them for their “Discus Day” event. The event started at 10am, went on until the late afternoon around 5pm and as well as the great variety of domestic and wild discus available, there were plenty of discus related goodies on show as well. The reason for my invitation was to construct an authentic discus fish biotope aquarium as part of the discus themed day and help raise funds for the Freshwater Life Project, the …

Biotopes of Brunei | Cyprinid diversity in the blackwaters of the Lumut River

Zaheer Afie Biotope Leave a Comment

We have embarked on our next adventure, which this time around takes us all the way to the upper stretches of the Lumut River. The Sungai (River) Lumut is located in Belait District, the largest district in Brunei Darussalam and has a length of approximately 14km+ which starts at Lumut beach seems to end somewhere in the region of its arrival to the Labi road; it is an independent river and not connected to the Belait river. Our collection site is located next to the Telisai Lumut Highway in similar habitat to our previous trip to the  Upper Telamba river. …