High profile scientists like you and Walter with a brand new species and
out at the habitat and not even a token stomach analysis? For the likes of
Roy and me it would be excusable ;-)
How many hundreds did you catch and kill in the interests of science? How
many trips did you make out there? Did you do an invertebrate survey? What
other likely food organisms were there?
I wasn't aware that gill structure was an indicator of diet. Coluld you
explain to us how reliable this is and where we could find a reference to
follow up on this please? My own thoughts on possible diet were that they
might be more like Pseudomugil mellis and (besides the mozzies,bloodworms
and mini-crustaceans) need a good helping of algae and diatoms. I seem to
remember various authors citing the positioning of the mouth and the
profile of the head as an indicator of diet. e.g. I. werneri being
mid-water feeders on plankton with their tiny terminal mouth and
symmetrical upper and lower profiles.
Perhaps Rob Wager has done some of these things in his planning for
conservation recommendations ?
Bruce Hansen
ANGFA
email: bhansen at ozemail.com.au
Don't miss the ANGFA web pages at -
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~fisher/angfa.htm
----------
From: peter.unmack at ASU.Edu
To: rainbowfish at pcug.org.au
Subject: Re: Red-Fin Blue Eyes
Date: Wednesday, 13 November 1996 15:14
On Sun, 10 Nov 1996, Bruce Hansen wrote:
> Maintaining vigorous populations of Red-fin Blue-eyes (SVs) has proved to
> be much more difficult than other members of the family.
I think that most of the problems associated with breeding them relates
to food. In my experience it was difficult to get many eggs unless I fed
large quantities of mozzie larvae. Few people bother to do this. They
are also a fish that one has to work hard to maintain over a longer
period of time. You can't just through them into a tank like you can
with gertrudae and get fry.
> I seem to remember that the natural water is rather
> unusual in that it is soft and alkaline, which is hard to maintain and
Not when you live in wonderful Melbourne. :=)
> I guess the other aspect of hatchability and viability that we tend to
> consider in these situations is diet of the parents. Does anyone have
> access to stomach content analysis of the fish in the field? It could be
> that we aren't giving them enough variety or balance of" animal to
> vegetable " etc
No one has examined any stomach contents to the best of my knowledge. By
their gill structure Walter felt they would eat mostly invertebrates I
think.
Cheers
Peter Unmack