NEWS102
12
Adult (= full-grown)male
Tyttocharaxcochui
.
All photos:FrankSchäfer
Female
Tyttocharaxcochui
.
nusualdiscovery
The specimens on which the
description was based were found in a
consignment of ornamental fishes at the
then world-famous import business
Aquarium Hamburg, where Ladiges, who
later worked as an ichthyologist at the
HamburgZoologicalMuseum,wasworking
at the time. That is nothing particularly
unusual in itself.Lotsof small fishes from the
tropics have the ornamental fish trade to
thank for their discovery. But in this case
matters were somewhat different, as
AquariumHamburgwas actually importing
South American Leaf-fishes (
Monocirrhus
polyacanthus
) from Peru. Because in those
days ornamental fishes were still imported
via steam ship, they had been in transit for
severalweeks.So that thedelicatepredators
wouldn’t
come
to
grief
during
transportation, the exporter had packed
small food fisheswith them in thecans.And
those were the new dwarf characins! It
wouldappear that the leaf-fisheswereabit
sea-sickanddidn’thavemuchofanappetite;
otherwise who knows when
Tyttocharax
U
In1949W.L
ADIGES
introducedanewdwarf characin in thehobbymagazine
Wochenschrift für Aquarien- und Terrarienkunde under the heading “Drei
unbestimmte Neuheiten” (Three unidentified new species). A year later he
formally scientificallydescribed the speciesas
Microbryconcochui
.
Tyttocharaxcochui
byKlausDiehl
cochui
wouldhavebeendiscovered!
On investigation it was found that the few
specimens imported originated from the
vicinity of Ramon Castilla (Loreto Province,
4°14’S, 69° 58’W). Ladiges initially handed
themoverto thewell-knownexpertE.Roloff
sameappliedback thenas today:practically
everything that humanity knew about the
biologyof small fisheswasderived from the
observationsofaquarists.Naturallytheonset
of war placed massive limitations on the
aquarium hobby just as it did on all other
humancultural activities,butpeopledid the
best theycould.
A number of species of tetras are known
from southern South America that exhibit
quiteatypical,aberrantreproductivebiology
in theaquarium.These fisheshavemodified
scales at the base of the caudal fin that
perform the function of glands; in other
words, they are able to release substances.
totryandbreed;hewaspromptlysuccessful,
as he reported in theDecember 1949 issue
ofthesamemagazineasfirstannouncedthe
importation.
Caudal-finglands
Nowadays it is easy to underestimate how
many fish species were already being
maintained and bred in the aquarium in
Europe prior to the SecondWorldWar. The
Dwarf fish
