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Aqualognews NUMBER 94 3
Wild killies
from Peru
by Wolfgang Löll
T
he first mention of the name in the
literature dates from the year 1788,
when D. J. Schoepf published a paper
entitled “Beschreibungen einiger Nord-
Amerikanischer Fische, vorzüglich aus den
Neu-Yorkischen Gewässern” (= Descriptions
of some North American fishes, mainly from
the waters of New York) in the journal
Schriften der Berlinischen Gesellschaft
naturforschender Freunde. In this paper he
gives the local common name for the abovementioned
Fundulus as “Killfish”,but doesn’t
explain it.There are two possible derivations
for the name: the commonest is that the
word killifish comes from the Dutch word kill
(meaning river) plus fish,in other words,“river
fish”.However,this Fundulus hardly ever lives
in rivers; hence the second derivation may
well be the correct one, according to which
the phrase “killing bait” is used for a
particularly effective angling bait. To the
present day Fundulus heteroclitus is used as a
bait fish in the area around New York.Be that
as it may, the name killifish in no way reflects
the behavior of these wonderful creatures in
the aquarium!
Wild-caught or captive-bred?
Only a few groups of fishes have so many
aquarium populations as the killifishes,or are
bred to such a high level of (scientifically
demanding) expertise. In theory there is no
need to rely on imports for the hobby.
Nevertheless the recent importation by
Aquarium Glaser of a whole series of
different wild-caught killifish species from
KILLIFISHES
The name “killifish” for the egg-laying toothcarps has become current
all over the world.To the uninitiated it may sound somewhat brutal, but
it has nothing to do with the English word “kill”. The name killifish
originated in the New York area, where it was used for the species
Fundulus heteroclitus macrolepidotus.
Aphyolebias schleseri,male all Photos: Frank Schäfer
Aphyolebias schleseri,female
Peru is very welcome, as although
inbreeding isn’t usually a significant problem
in aquarium fishes (the high reproductive
rate of fishes invariably permits any
inheritable defects in captive-bred strains to
be eliminated by careful selection), the
majority of aquarium strains trace their
ancestry to only a very small number of
founder specimens. This means that often
only very little is known about the range of
natural intraspecific variation. The
importation of comparatively large numbers
of specimens can fill these gaps in our
knowledge and thus help us understand the