FROM THE ARCHIVES: What's been did and what's been hid

What's been did and what been hid

by Jonathan Downes

I have been a fish keeper for nearly four decades now, and with the onset of middle age I find myself rapidly entering old git territory. One of the enviable traits of the middle-aged is that they can bore on about how things were much better in their youth. I remember, when I was about 12 or 13, my father spending an entire lunch telling me and my younger brother that the Led Zeppelin album that I had just received was atrocious, decadent, and not to be mentioned in the same breath as the Glenn Miller records of his youth. Don't worry, guys; I am not going to spend this entire article droning on about how much better fish keeping was in the 1960s. Mainly because it wasn't. Our hobby has come on apace, and I - for one - would hate to see a return to the bad old days.

However, if you'll pardon me relapsing into old git territory, there are some notable absences from the show tanks of tropical tropical fish shops - mostly fish that used to be kept widely and which are now very seldom seen, but a few, which as far as I know, have never been kept within the trade and I have never understood why.

The Mosquito Fish (Gambusia affinis)

I have extolled the virtues of this singular species in these pages before. I think that it is true to say that if it were not for this particular fish, that the tropical fish hobby, and furthermore the multinational industry that supports it, would not exist. These were the first tropical fish to be kept in temperate climes. They are attractive, showy, engaging little fellows. If I may dare to be anthropomorphic - something I usually avoid like the plague - they are one of the few little fish that really seem to have characters. All the other members of the live bearers that I have come across are nice enough little beasts but hardly riveting company. Don't get me wrong - I have enjoyed keeping Platys any time since 1966, but even the most beautiful of them pales into insignificance besides a male gambusia in breeding colouration.

Originally these little fish come from the warm areas of the southern United States and Central America, but they have a natural attribute that mankind has found irresistible. Their favourite diet is mosquito larvae, and they have been introduced to many parts of the world - including southern Europe - as a preventative measure against malaria. Sadly, however, they have lapsed in popularity as a pet (largely because of their pugnacious nature), and they are very seldom seen in the these anodyne days. If you actually manage to get hold of any please do - you won't be disappointed.

Paddyfield Eel (Monopterus albus)

I was brought up in the last days of the British Empire. Indeed, during my childhood in Hong Kong, I was a witness (though I did not know it at the time), to the last years of Empire proper, before the remaining jewel in the Crown succumbed to a creeping menace of laissez faire capitalism. I remember the governor driving past in his open-topped car and a hat decorated with ostrich plumes. I remember the cannon being fired each day at noon. My memories of the 1960s, therefore, are somewhat different to those of anybody who lived through the decade of love in the UK. My early years as an aquarist, therefore, were spent on the opposite side of the world and so I have no real idea whether this wonderful species was ever widely kept in the UK. Similarly, because I have not lived in the Orient since 1980, I have no idea whether paddyfield Eels are still kept as pets in Hong Kong. But if they ain't they damn well should be.

Paddyfield eels are not eels at all, but members of the order Sybranchiformes or swamp eels. They grow to a length about a hundred centimetres, and are - as the name implies - vaguely eel-like in shape. They are mostly and muddy brown in colour, although there is a very striking chestnut colour morph. They are practically indestructible, and I have seen them kept alive on Chinese market stalls in wicker baskets, which are occasionally doused with water. Why, you must ask, am I extolling their virtues as pets? They ain't exactly attractive. No, they are not, but they are highly intelligent - and in my 38 years of fish keeping I believe that they are by far the cleverest fish that I have ever kept. Various girlfriends (and an ex wife), over the past two decades have complained that I keep fish and other animals in tanks and that you're not able to interact with them in the same way that you can a dog or cat. Well duh! They live in water for one thing, but if you are looking for a fish that will become your constant companion during those long winter evenings then you cannot do better than one of these.

They can become hand tame, will feed from your hand, and will even learn to recognise different people in the room. Nobody ever believes me when I say this, but I even had one once that would let me pet it. They are fantastic fish, and I believe that although you cannot buy them in pet shops, they are imported for the Chinese food market.

There is, of course, a downside. They will devour any other animal in the tank with them, and in parts of America and Hawaii they have become introduced into the wild where they have become an invasive pest. This has given them an enormous amount of bad press. However, I have been a journalist for many years and can whole-heartedly advise you not to believe all that you read in the papers. Try buying one of these fish - shove it in a tank by itself. Don't bother to decorate the tank, your new pet will destroy any ornamentation you care to provide, and will uproot all plants, but you'll have a friend for life.

The Bitterling (Rhodeus amarus)

Even 15 years ago these fish were commonly seen for sale in high street pet stores. However, I haven't seen them for years. This is a great pity, because they are cheap and delightful pets. They are attractive little things - of a strange violet hue, and are lively and fun to watch. But it is their breeding habits, which are most notable. In the spring the males possess all the colours of the rainbow, and the females develop a strange fleshy ovipositor. In order to breed successfully they need the presence of a freshwater mussel into which the female lays her eggs. The male guards the mussel until the eggs have hatched.

Once upon a time these were very commonly kept, and as far as I'm aware it is purely because of the vagaries of fashion that they are no longer seen in pet shops. There are several closely related species of bitterling including some from the Far East, which can be kept in tropical tanks rather than cold-water ones. These charming little fish are well overdue a comeback.

If you ever get a chance to keep them, please do. You will not be disappointed.

Freshwater Pipefish

For my final selection I would like to choose something a little bit different. Freshwater pipefish are occasionally seen on dealers lists in the USA but I have never seen any in this country. The Syngnathidae or Pipefish family includes over 200 species, distributed worldwide except for the polar regions, mostly in marine environments. A small number of species reside in freshwater habitats. The Syngnathidae family is characterised by a body encased in a series of bony rings; a tube-like snout; and a lack of pelvic fins. Eggs are incubated in the abdominal pouch of the male.

Freshwater species are found in Africa, Indonesia and Central America. I first heard about them in one of Gerald Durrell's excellent books about animal collecting in Africa in the 1940s, and they have fascinated me ever since. From what I can gather, they are relatively easy to keep in a 35-45 gallon (132-170 l) tank. The tank should have a sand - preferably coral sand - substrate and be in a location that receives morning sun. Plant the tank heavily with plants that can tolerate the slightly brackish water conditions. The filter should create a moderate current and the tank must be well aerated. They can even be bred in captivity. With the growing popularity of exotic species such as freshwater stingrays, it is only a matter of time - I believe - before they are available commonly in British shops. When they are, remember where you read about them first.

THE CASE OF THE FURRY TROUT

I have always been fond of this particular image, because although it is obviously a hoax, it is a hoax that has been manufactured with one particular purpose in mind - to make people laugh. Because it is a hoax so unutterably ludicrous that one cannot, for a moment, imagine that anyone would take it seriously.

You would be surprised.

A few years ago I was working as the deputy editor of a tropical fish magazine called Tropical World. The editor was a very nice bloke, but he had health problems, and a weakness for the sauce which eventually killed him, so I ended up running the show for a considerable amount of the time.

One day when the editor was in hospital and I was once again in charge, I received an email from someone attaching this picture. Now, I had only ever seen it before in a wonderful book called Animal Fakes and Frauds by a bloke called Peter Dance, and was completely unprepared for a letter from a bloke saying that he was in the throes of setting up a coldwater fishtank, with some unusual inhabitants, and was looking for a furry trout to complete his collection.

The frightening thing was that this geezer was obviously somewhat of a fish afficianado (a piece of alliteration that sounds better read out than it does writen down). He already had some rather impressive North American coldwater fish (including bullhead catfish and pumpkinseeds, which are both technically illegal to keep) and an expensive filtration system.

So maybe I was once again suffering from the sin of pride through prior knowledge. There are, after all, hairy frogs. Why not furry trout?

A round-up of some newly discovered fish species

New species of animal are discovered a lot more regularly than you might think. Bringing joy to Max and Jon's hearts are several new species of freshwater fish, which will - no doubt - turn up in the pet trade before long. As Max pointed out some weeks ago, the pet trade has new and undescribed species in on a regular basis.

1) Apistogramma erythrura
Location: Mamoré River, Bolivia.

A new dwarf cichlid, related to the well-known `ram` or Ramarezi dwarf cichlid, beloved of aquarists over the years. It is very similar to the `ram` in appearance, although is slightly smaller.

This one spawns in caves and measures less than 4 cm in length. It was described by Wolfgang Staeck and Ingo Schindler in 2008.

2) Australoheros spp
Location: Southern Brazil

Felipe Ottoni and Wilson Costa have recently described nine new species of Australoheros cichlid: Australoheros autrani, A. barbosae, A. ipatinguensis, A. macacuensis, A. muriae, A. paraibae, A. robustus, A. Saquarema. There are currently no photographs available, not even any that we could steal citing `fair use` (which covers a multitude of sins), but PFK have a series of technical descriptions of the fish HERE

3) Crenicichla tesai and Crenicichla mandelburgeri

Two new pike cichlid species have been described from tropical South America. C. tesai was taken in the Iguazú River, Argentina. This species was described last year in the journal Revue Suisse de Zoologie 115 by Cisciotta, J and A Almiron in the article Crenicichla tesai, a new species of cichlid (perciformes: Labroidei) from the Rio Iguazu basin in Argentina.

Pike Cichlids are a group of South American fishes of the genus Crenicichla. They inhabit the freshwaters lakes, streams, rivers and pools of most of the Amazonian rivers, but there are many species found in Colombian, Venezuelan and Guyanan waters to the north of the Amazon. To the south, there are representatives of the genus all the way down to coastal regions of central Argentina. Basically, they are found east of the Andes, from the island of Trinidad in the north to the area around the Argentinian Rio Negro just north of Patagonia.

This species is named after the tear-shaped suborbital stripe (the name comes from the Guaraní word for tears) and is known from the Iguazú River upstream of Iguazú falls in Argentina. According to the authors, the species was caught in streams whose bottoms were composed of mud, sand and mostly stone; the streams had falls and pools, with clear, rapidly-flowing water.

Crenicichla mandelburgeri however comes from the Paraná River, Paraguay, and was discovered in two different habitats, one with rapids and brown muddy water with a depth of 1 meter and the other with shallow water where visibility regularly fluctuated. Some of the specimens were collected from rapids in a large stream, 5–10m wide, to 1m deep, with turbid, brownish water, while others came from small, shallow brown-water streams up to about 3m wide, with varying velocity and transparency, with bottom of sand and stones, and generally without vegetation.

4) Hyphessobrycon spp
Location: Northern Venezuela

Two new species of tetra, Hyphessobrycon paucilepis and H. tuyensis were described in the journal Vertebrate zoology 58in 2008. Hyphessobrycon paucilepis originates from the small drainages in Lara state, northern Venezuela. H. tuyensis from the Tuy River drainage in northern Venezuela. Again, at present, there are no photographs available.

5) Puntius kelumi
Location: Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan scientists have described a new species of barb from southwestern Sri Lanka in a recent issue of the journal Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters. Puntius kelumi is found in the south west of Sri Lanka, mainly in large, clear-water streams flowing from mountains that contain a granite, pebble or sand substrate and are often strewn with boulders.


6) Lithogenes wahari
Location: Cuao River, Venezuela.

This species of catfish was first observed over 20 years ago, but not found again until 2001.

As described on the bloggo earlier this year, recently a type specimen was obtained and it was described in the journal American Museum Novitates. It has also been proposed by ichthyologists that an ancestor of this species may have been capable of climbing rocks.

Food glorious Food - unusual feeding strategies in fish

Gone are the days when the home aquarist believed that all he or she had to do in order to keep his pet happy was to bung in a handful of dried ants eggs once a week and hope for the best. Nowadays the feeding of animals in the home aquarium is a high-tech business, and a whole industry has built up around the piscine equivalents of Jamie Oliver. Anyone who takes their fish keeping even slightly seriously will have a whole battery of dried food, live food, frozen food, and various supplements for their finny friends. And this is just for the fish species most commonly kept in home aquaria.

A friend of ours (a non fish keeper) once commented, when seeing our array of haute cuisine aimed at giving our fishy pals the best possible diet, "Fussy little bleeders ain't they?" He was amazed when we told him about some of the stranger ways that fish in the wild catch their prey.

The megamouth shark, for example. One of the biggest fish in the sea, it was discovered as recently as 1976 and has often been cited by cryptozoologists as an example of how new large species of animal are still lurking out there awaiting discovery. It's feeding strategies, however are almost as extraordinary. Like many other species of large shark, it is a plankton feeder. It has weird prehensile lips and an enormous mouth which give it its name. However, unlike other plankton feeding sharks such as the whale shark or the basking shark, recent research has suggested that its teeth exhibit a weird bioluminescence which attracts the tiny sea creatures on which it feeds and lures them - like a moth to a light bulb - into its enormous maw. were warned

I have always wondered why the more radical feminists in society have not decided to adopt some of the deeper sea angler fish as an icon. In these species, whilst the female is a large and complex creature, the male - essentially just a swimming bag of sperm - attaches itself to the side of the female and has lives a parasitic existence whose only biological function is to fertilise the eggs and then die. Jon moonlights as a freelance designer and would be haappy to come up with a picture of Valerie Solanas. For the purposes of this article, however, it is not the breeding strategies of these fishes which are of interest - but the way they feed.

Anglerfish get their name from their use of a specialized fleshy appendage - a modified ray of the dorsal fin - which it may wiggle like a fishing lure to assist in attracting prey. Angler Fish are found in many parts of the ocean - from relatively shallow waters to the abyssal deeps. The deeper the water, the stranger they become. Below 1,000 metres you enter the dark zone and an alien world. The hairy angler is the size of a beach ball and its body is covered in long antennae designed to pick out the movements of any prey foolish enough to venture close to its terrifying teeth.

Another species is even found in British coastal waters.It has a large flattened head with a wide semicircualr mouth and inward curving, pointed teeth. Behind the head the body tapers to a short, thickset tail. Like so many other fish whose appearance is such that the consumer would find it unappetising, when it is caught and filleted for sale it is renamed "rock salmon" before it reaches the supermarket shelves.

Possibly the strangest strategy employed by any fish species in order to catch and subdue its prey is found in those species which use electricity. Electric rays of the families Torpedinidae, Narkidae, Hyphnidae, and an extralimital family, are unique in having two large, kidney-shaped electric organs in the disc on either side of the head. These organs are capable of generating strong electric shock which are administered at will. The powerful electric organs derive from branchial muscles. The presence of electric organs require a good conducting medium; it is thus not surprising to find such adaptations only among aqueous organisms. Electric signals are produced by several other species of fishes and used for quite a different task. In contrast with the weakly electric fishes - like the elephant fish - that use electrical fields for navigation and signaling these fish produce a powerful discharge of current to stun enemies and prey.

Whilst torpedo rays - like angler fish and megamouth sharks - are not suitable subjects for the home aquarium, at least one species - the misnamed electric eel ('cos whilst it is certainly electric it ain't an Eel, but is closely related to knifefishes), sometimes turns up on dealers lists and has been kept in the larger home aquarium for many years. The eel has a dark grey/brown back with a yellow under-body, and a smooth skin covered in tiny scales. Its vital organs are found at the front of the body, leaving the rest of the "tail" for the electric organ, this can take up to 4/5 of the entire length. Despite the fact that the eel has gills, if submerged for longer than fifteen minutes at a time, it will suffocate through lack of oxygen, hence it surfaces at regular intervals. An adult eel can reach any size from five to nine feet in length - this will give an indication of the potential voltage it produces when in attack or defence. A large adult can produce a potential difference in excess of 600 volts (between its head and tail), and combined with a current of up to 1 ampere, this can be fatal if delivered to a human in the near vicinity of the eel. The eels thick skin acts as protection against its own electric shocks. Injuries inflicted upon the eel can result in the eel electrocuting itself.

However, there is one species commonly kept in home aquaria whose strategy for gathering its food is so peculiar that it almost defies belief. In mangrove swamps and brackish rivers across the Indopacific region a deadly hunter stalks its prey. With the precision of a sniper with a high powered rifle, it carefully manoeuvres itself into the optimum position and then fires its weapon. A "bullet" of water shoots through the air and knocks a flying insect off balance and into the water below. The archer fish has claimed another victim.

There are six species of archerfish which live across the Indopacific region from Burma and northern India as far south as Australia and New Guinea. They are strikingly marked, silver and black fish found both singly and in shoals. The markings are excellent camouflage for small fishes which swim amongst the roots of the tidal mangrove plants, but they have excellent eyesight (with eyes that are capable of being moved in all directions except downwards) and it is also thought that they are able to recognise members of their own species from these markings. Archerfish are so adept at manoeuvring through the mangroves that they can even swim backwards! They control populations of their prey and are also important food for others higher up on the food chain.

Archer Fishes are skilled underwater hunters. They feed off small invertebrates which they catch using a specialised hunting technique which has earned them their name. They are unusual amongst fish in hunting creatures that live out of the water. They spit out carefully aimed jets of water droplets to knock their intended prey off balance and into the water. Archer fish have a specially adapted groove in the roof of their mouths. The fish presses its tongue against the groove to form a tube. Forcing water through their mouths with a powerful snap of the gills, the stream of water droplets can reach a distance of two or three metres although it is only accurate at a range of about a metre and a half. In order to take accurate aim the tiny fish swim along the surface of the water with their pointed snouths protruding out of the water.

Archer fishes have particularly large eyes and excellent three dimensional vision. However, because rays of light `bend` as they go through water, they have had to learn how to compensate for this and aim slightly below the prey for the best resultts. Although they have this unique ability to become a living water pistol, they actually prefer to hunt for food in more conventional ways. Archer fish in public aquaria, where there is an abundance of food actually seem to forget how to shoot water. Both in captivity and in the wild archer fish seem to prefer to leap up to 30 cm out of the water in order to snatch their prey in mid air. These fishes also hunt in a more conventional manner, and form shoals in deeper water where they hunt aquatic crustaceans and smaller fishes.

Like a surprisingly large number of species often seen in public and private aquaria, archerfish are not bred in captivity and little is known about their breeding behaviour. It is believed that it is mostly the juvenile specimens which are found in "shooting parties" in fresh and brackish water whereas the adults are more solitary and swim out to sea to breed in and around coastal coral reefs. Between 20,000-150,000 eggs are laid, but only a few of these will ever reach maturity a year or two later. The colour of the archerfish changes as they get older. Perhaps because when they are young they live in shoals which swim in muddy water, the younger specimens have flashes of a beautiful iridescent yellow on their sides. As the fish become older and more solitary, these flashes disappear, and even the distinctive black banding gets shorter. In the most mature specimens the black stripes are only found on the upper parts of the fish.

It is to be hoped that as the aquarium hobby progresses into the 21st century that we shall get to learn more about the biology of some of the animals that we keep. Whilst the larger fishes described in this article will never become commonly kept as household pets, it seems probable that as the technology of fish keeping progresses that the number of species were able to keep in captivity will widen further. It is our firm belief that as aquarists and as amateur naturalists we have a duty to study the animals in our care and to to the sum total of human knowledge about them. For it is only with such knowledge that mankind will learn how to protect and conserve the animals with whom we share this planet and insure that our children, and our childrens children will continue to gain the pleasure and joy that we do from observing the microcosms of the great oceans in the tanks in the corners of our living rooms.

A little bit of history in your tank

At the beginning of the 21st century there is an enormous variety of fish for the aquarist to choose from. One of the most exciting parts of my job is when I receive a dealer's list which includes newly discovered species which haven't even been given Latin names. I have been keeping tropical fish since I was a boy in the mid-1960s, and on a whole, the fish that I started with are those still used by beginners today.

I suppose if I had thought about it - and I have to admit that until I came to write this article I hadn't really - I had imagined that these myriad living jewels were of the home aquarium had been known to science for for many many years, even if they hadn't been commonly kept as pets until the technology to allow them to be so, had been developed.

How wrong I was. It turns out that some of the fish most popular with aquarists are actually relatively recent discoveries. In many ways it could be said that the proliferation of tropical fish species known to science is actually a direct result of the expansion of what was once a mildly arcane rich man's hobby into a multinational industry worth tens of billions of dollars each year.

Take the neon tetra for example. Although it is found in its untold millions in the Rio Putumayo - one of the tributaries of the Amazon, it was not actually discovered until 1936 when a French animal collector called A. Rabout noticed them by accident whilst he was actually trying to do something completely different! He was canoeing along the river when he saw a large shoal of these ridiculously beautiful fish. He scooped about half-a-dozen up in his hat, and the rest is history!

He sent them to Chicago's John G. Shield Aquarium where they were given a Latin name Paracheirodon innesi in honour of the famous pioneering and aquarist, William T.Innes whose seminal work on tropical fish in the 1930s has been my favourite fish book for four decades. The popular name was a topical one because the psychedelic glare of neon lighting had only just begun to make its presence felt on the American consciousness. For many years the precise location of the natural habitat of these tiny fish was a closely guarded secret! It seems strange today, when you can pick up this lovely fish for a handful of pennies, to look back at the days when neon tetras were so highly sought-after that a single specimen could cost more than all the other fish in a collector's tank.

The names of fish can often give a clue to the date of a species discovery. Like the neon tetra, Cichlasoma biocellatum - a particularly pugnacious species of cichlid is the proud possessor of a topical name which ties down the discovery date nicely. At any other time its common name would have been the same as its Latin name - the twin eyed cichlid. However, at the time of its discovery in 1909, C Tate Regan, the man who fished the type specimen out of the Rio Negro, was a boxing fan and named this plucky little cichlid after Jack Dempsey the famous boxer. As Dempsey didn't rise to fame until after the First World War, and didn't reach his legendary status until the 1920s, it appears that its common name arrived some years after its discovery.

Years ago I remember telling my father about this legendary fish, and he told me how - whilst a sailor on shore leave in New York during the war - he had drunk with the famous boxer at a bar he had bought after his retirement in 1940.

Even the Guppy - possibly the most ubiquitous tropical fish in the world was only discovered in 1856 when Julius Gollmer, a German pharmacist living in Caracas caught some colourful little fish which he eventually sent back as part of a shipment of animals to the Berlin Zoo. The first delivery of these fishes brought to their discoverer an inordinate amount of praise and a gratuity of hundred Reichstaler. However, the 16 dead guppies preserved in alcohol stayed on the shelf of a German museum for several years before they were finally named. For some reason, although both male and female guppies had been sent, only the females were described, and it wasn't until 1866 when Reverend John Lechmere Guppy sent both males and females back from Trinidad that the notable degree of sexual dimorphism which has made these lovely little fish perennial aquarium favourites ever since, was noted and the fish named after the good Padre of Trinidad.

If it hadn't been for the ineptitude of the experts at the National Museum of Germany then the tiny fish which has become one of the most famous Aquarium denizens of all time would have been called The Gollmer!

The Cardinal Tetra is a surprisingly recent discovery. The type specimens were found in the Rio Negro only three years before my birth in 1959. Once again, it is very tempting to draw links between the invention of new technology for the fish keeper and the discovery of a number of new species. The invention - in the mid-1950s - of the under gravel filter revolutionised fish keeping around the world. It was the first truly biological medium for ensuring water purity and it has - with some degree of justification - been described as the most important technical advance in the history of a hobby. There is no doubt that the discovery revolutionised fish keeping and led to a renewed level of public interest. This in turn drove the movers and shakers of the aquarist community to search out new and exotic creatures which they could display for the public edification. The Cardinal Tetra was one of these. The common name comes from a fanciful idea that they resemble the colours worn by a high ranking prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, and the scientific name - axelrodi is a none too subtle nod to one of the market leaders in the global fish keeping industry.

It is sad to note that within only a few years of its discovery these fish were being described as becoming a threatened species in the wild.

When examining the literature surrounding the discovery of so many of these species, one realises quite how important the global Aquarium industry has become. Most of the creatures described in this article were, indeed, discovered a result of market forces led expeditions whose only remit was to discover more species suitable for introduction into the Global Pet market. However, there is another paradigm which is almost equally prevalent. This is where a species - plecostamus sucker mouth catfish are a good example - is discovered by a scientific team sent out by a university or museum. These (now ubiquitous) fish were mostly discovered in the 1930s, but were not introduced into the aquarium trade for some decades. The species is captured, named and then forgotten until - almost by accident - it is "rediscovered" by an industry who has decided that it is ripe for exploitation.

In some cases it is possible to see how the integration of certain fish species into the popular market place comes as a result of human politics. The Spanish American war at the beginning of the 20th century not only changed the political map of the world with the Philippines, Puerto Rico and several other places coming under American rule, but was instrumental in a number of Central American species - including platys and swordtails being introduced to the domain of the home aquarist. The expansion of the British Empire in the 19th century led to the discovery of gouramis as pet fish - originally in the ornamental pools of the Raj, and later as exhibits in the first British tropical aquaria.

The pages of the history books, which tell the story of aquaculture, make uncomfortable reading. Like so many branches of Human Endeavour they tell the story of how mankind rapes, abuses and finally denudes whole sections of the planet on which we have been privileged to evolve. Nowadays the industry likes to feel that it is far more ethical than it has been in the past. Indeed, that is generally the case. However, it is important with fish keeping - as with everything else - not to lose the sight of the lessons of history. Although sometimes the story of the discovery of a species - like the Guppy - merely reveals a mildly amusing insight into the human Psyche, on other occasions - such as the cardinal Tetra - the story is a far less edifying one, and furthermore one which we as hobbyists would do well to take heed of.