Guyana and Sri Lanka

[Innesfan]

Does anyone know if Guyana and Sri Lanka are exporting endemic freshwater species?

I haven't seen two of my favorite species, Nannostomus harrisoni from Guyana, and the Sri Lankan Pethia reval (alias, P. cumingii--the 'Cuming's Barb') for the longest time. Both were readily available through the 1990s and N. harrisoni was even being farmed in Asia, while Florida fish farms produced P. reval back in the day. But alas neither has been seen for many years.

Does anyone know if these two countries have stopped exporting endemics entirely?

N. harrisoni:

P. reval (formerly P.cumingii):

 

[GaryE]

Fish come in from Guyana, but intermittently. Most of what comes is for the Cichlid hobby. I've seen references to harrisoni in the European hobby, but I haven't seen it here in ages. I've found a couple of the nice little pencils have become extremely uncommon here. I can't find a lot of once common ones. Any, really. They aren't in style?

Cummings barb surprised me. They used to be everywhere, and were a fish I always intended to keep. You're right, they have vanished. I didn't even note it had happened, but I don't know when I last saw some. I know fish have come in from Sri Lanka, but I don't know how organized the export is.

I find that while there are some very good specialty dealers, the growth of the local monopoly chains has really reduced the offerings in many places. A Petco sells only Petco species,and there aren't many of those species. Linebred fish and GMOed fish have replaced a lot of cool stuff in large sections of the market.

It'll be interesting to see what other people have to say, and what they've seen. I hope both are easy to find somewhere.

Joni Mitchell just popped into my head: "Don't it always seem to be, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone. They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." In that parking lot, there's a Petco.

 

[Back in the fold]

"Don't it always seem to be, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone. They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." In that parking lot, there's a Petco.

Isn’t it the truth !

 

[Innesfan]

Thanks for the input, @GaryE . Wetspot in Oregon and Aquaticclarity in Wisconsin both consistently have several species and variants of Nannostomus available for on-line purchase. The former currently has four species and the latter 11 offerings of 7 species and their variants. All are Amazon Basin wildlings except a couple of tank raised N. beckfordi variants.

But what I haven't seen of late are the species endemic to the Guiana Shield states--N. harrisoni from Guyana, Fr. Guiana and Suriname, N. espei from Guyana etc. Hence why I wondered if Guyana had stopped exporting endemics.

As for Cuming's Barbs, I'm kicking myself that I didn't produce an ongoing colony from my last batch. They are wonderful creatures. Beautful, vivid, tough, always out front and a joy to watch. I didn't even know the species was split and the yellow-finned variant ---which I didn't even know existed--got the well known name, P. cumingii, and the red-finned variant, the one pictured as Cuming's Barbs in every book since Innes, got the new name, P. reval.

 

[GaryE]

I haven't seen any of the cummings group, now that I know it's a group.

We have 2 importers in eastern Canada that will bring in oddballs - below water, which tends to toward new species/higher end fish, and Maison du Poisson, which aims at the B-level - fish that were new ten years ago, or that aren't commonly imported. Both deal mainly in South American wild caughts. Below water sometimes has Asian fish, but not often.

When I was a kid I found a colourized little fishbook in my grandfather's shed. I don't know who wrote it or the title, but it was a 1930s work, a pocket book. I set myself the task of keeping all the fish in it, because they looked so interesting in how they were presented. It took me until about 8 years ago to find them all. So the old books were important to me.

Fishwise, I live in the middle of nowhere. I'm four hours each way from a decent fish store, and 9 hours from the major centres in Montreal. Shipping in Canada costs four or five times what it does in the US. But I work around it, and stock up when I can.

 

[Innesfan]

When I was a kid I found a colourized little fishbook in my grandfather's shed. I don't know who wrote it or the title, but it was a 1930s work, a pocket book. I set myself the task of keeping all the fish in it, because they looked so interesting in how they were presented. It took me until about 8 years ago to find them all. So the old books were important to me.

I love this.

Your description rang a bell so I went to the bookcase. Was this the little book? It's 4 1/2" by 7", published 1939:

 

[GaryE]

That's not it, but it's nice.