Madagascar Bedotia & Madgascar Pachypanchax Tanks

A docent at the aquarium really Intrigued me about these 2 species of fish. Both species live in lakes on the island of Madagascar. They help control the mosquito Population down. Sadly both species are highly endangered because of invasion species of fish. The docent couldn't recall what species of invasion fish but its really declining them. These specimens that are in these tanks though will be heading back into the wild. The Aquarium has been real successful in breeding since they started the program. I really enjoy hearing stories like these.

If the sign is right, this aquarium holds Bedotia madagascariensis, which is one of the very few member of the Madagascar rainbowfish family that still is doing ok in the wild. This is the species that often is mislabelled as B. geayi. Presumably, they use B. madagascariensis to illutrate the backstage work they're doing with some of the more threatened species in the genus (many of which have still not received a scientific name). Paul Loiselle worked at New York Aquarium until recently and is still emeritus curator. He is one of the world's top authorities on Madagascar fish. He has done much work with several very rare species of e.g. Bedotia (varying from very succesful to less so, depending on exact species) and this is continuing after his retirement. Although there are Bedotia and Pachypanchax in some lakes, they're mostly found in rivers and each species is typically restricted to only one or two rivers. Unfortunately this is not a case of an invasive fish driving them to extinction, but a whole bunch of introduced species that cause several problems: arowanas and snakeheads eat the adults, tilapia change the ecosystems because of their voracious appetite for plants, swordtails and mosquitofish compete directly with them and feed on their offspring, and much, much more. Then you can add the rampant habitat destruction and overfishing in Madagascar and it should be clear why the freshwater fish of the island probably are overall more threatened than the famous lemurs. Tragic because the fish fauna is just as unique.

However, despite the overall bad situation, a few good stories have also happened recently. For example, both Ptychochromis insolitus and Ptychochromoides itasy have been rediscovered. Zoos/aquaria played important roles in both these rediscoveries (London and Berlin for the first, Toronto for the second). There are also captive breeding programs in both Europe and North America involving several species of endemic Madagascar rainbowfish, killifish and cichlids, but so far these only involve a fraction of the threatened species.

Thanks for the details temp I enjoyed reading the extra news.