Congo Killies - PageSuite

At the time of
my visit, the
Magdalena was
full of catfishes
of the family
Pimelodidae,
making their way
upstream by the
thousands.
up trying. In Cambao, further up the Magdalena, another fisherman, Jawel
Gomes Perrera, and three others told me the same thing. The American had
put the poison in the represa of the Lago Prado and the Magdalena had been
full of dead fishes for weeks.
OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP: H.-G. EVERS; THE REST: H. BLEHER
A lighter variant
We spent two days in Cambao with Jawel, who nowadays catches only food
fishes such as Pseudoplatystoma, Ageneiosus, Pimelodus, Hypostomus, Cyphocharax,
and a Leporinus species. Nevertheless, he was prepared to accompany me
in my search for cuchas de ojos azul. But we couldn’t find any Blue-Eyed Plec.
We didn’t find anything in the Río Seco, either.
The story of the Blue-Eyed Plec is really tragic, and once again demonstrates
what Homo sapiens is prepared to do to destroy aquatic fauna. I also
made searches in the upper Río Magdalena in the Departamento del Huila,
but without success. However, I did find a population of the Blue-Eyed Plec,
albeit a lighter variant, in the Río Cauca in the vicinity of Tamalameque,
before it empties into the Río Magdalena. This variant looks very similar to
another blue-eyed species, Cochliodon soniae (L 137), which I found in the
middle Tapajós many years ago.
This form doesn’t have such a black body coloration as the form that formerly
lived in the Magdalena. When I showed the owner of Stingray Aquarium
my lighter-colored Blue-Eyed Plecs, he told me that the lighter form had also
been brought back from the region of San Martin de Loba by his collectors.
A few specimens of this lighter variant from Colombia have been offered
for sale—at $250 U.S. each from Bogota—a serious price for serious catfish
breeders only. The average aquarist will have to wait and hope.
REFERENCES
Burgess, W. 1989. An Atlas of Freshwater and Marine Catfishes. TFH Publications, Neptune City, NJ.
Ferraris Jr., C. 1991. Catfish in the Aquarium. Tetra Press, Morris Plains, NJ
AMAZONAS
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