NEWS108
20
romascientificviewpoint
Pseudomugil
arenothingnew. The genuswasdes-
cribed as long ago as 1866byRudolf Kner
for the species
P. signifer
, andMaxWeber
supplemented itwith the species
P.novae-
F
Theblue-eyes (
Pseudomugil
)areagroupofsmall fresh-andbrackish-water fis-
hes.Atpresent thereare some15 speciesknown fromAustralia,NewGuinea,
andanumberofsmaller islands intheregion.
Anewstar in thedwarf sky:
TheNeonBlue-Eye
byWolfgangLöll
guineae
in 1907 and
P. gertrudae
in 1911.
Theneverythingwentquiet for a long time
regardingthesedainty little fishes.They first
appeared in theaquariumhobby inEurope
inthe1970s.Until thennobodyhadany idea
what breath-taking little jewels theywould
be in theaquarium.
Numerousnewspecies
In1955,1964,and1978threefurtherspecies
weredescribed,but only with the awake-
ning of aquarium-hobby interest did the
study of the group take a huge upturn.
Some10ofthe15speciesknowntoscience
were first discovered andnamedbetween
1981and1999.Ofcourse it isalwaysdifficult
tosaywhohasthemost influenceonwhom,
scienceontheaquariumhobbyortheaqua-
rium hobby on science. In the case of the
newly-discoveredNeonBlue-Eye,however,
theaquariumhobby is a stepaheadand is
nowwaiting for the scientists toundertake
the formalnamingof thespecies.
TheNeonBlue-Eye
Theaquariumworld first becameawareof
thisnew,spectacularlycolored littlespecies
-maximum length isonlyaroundthreecen-
Freshwater fishes
MaleNeonBlue-Eye.
All photos:FrankSchäfer
timeters - at the endof 2012.The first im-
portswere still veryexpensive,but thenew
blue-eyes proved to be completely hardy
and very easy to breed. In the meantime
bothGermantank-bredsand importedspe-
cimenshavebecomeavailable,though itre-
mains unclearwhether the latter arewild-
Femalesof the redvariantof theNeonBlue-Eye.
Birnbaumskamp4b
31139Hildesheim
Tel (05121) 47671Fax45750
