Hi again everybody,
Really pleased by your interest. It´s not so common that these little fellows interest anybody.
I´ll try to give some answers to your questions.
First of all, what we intend is to help maintain captive stocks of those species, although we are working on a project very close to Barcelona which involves environmental education, captive breeding, site evaluation and release of the captive bred fish (A. iberus). This will be a test to check how it can be done in other places and help maintain one of the local populations of A. iberus. I´m not a geneticist, but genetic studies have been done and inside Spain the populations of A. iberus show some differences. Shape and colour pattern are also different among them.
As for the other species… well, we work with the European Zoo and Aquarium Society, that should be the Institution in charge of convincing Governments and Environmental Organizations of the opportunities to develop conservation programs, wether this include captive breeding or not. Anyway, in some cases, these species are really endangered, so keeping a healthy captive stock is maybe the first step.
About breeding facilities… well, you have some of the pics made by Matt, at the moment we have a place with 16 pools, 14 or them are 400 l big (1,25 m x 1,25 m x 0,3 m) and the 2 big ones are 1500 l. This serves to keep and breed some species, but not all that we have, so several members of our association have also plastic tubs outdoors, little ponds in the garden, or just aquaria.
We also have a greenhouse with a 2500 indoor pond to breed cichlids during the summer, such as Paratilapia sp. “Andapa” which as adults won´t breed in aquarium (at least mine!!).
Something about the burduricus.. although this species name is still ver used in Turkey, it´s an old synonim of A. anatoliae sureyanus, which is the species present at Burdur lake.
About A. fasciatus in Malta… what a shame, seems to be the same thing everywhere for these little fish. Keep an eye on them, since after the recent description of A. almiriensis, A. fasciatus seems to be rather a complex of species, which sounds logical since it has such a wide distribution.
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<p>Let´s hope the weather is fine to do everything we´ve planned, and I guess you won´t have much time to sleep on Saturday night <img src=)
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<p>and Manuel if you happen to loose Matt in the wilderness…..leave him there <img src=)
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