AqualogNEWS98
30
Lexicon
Hepsetusodoe
Hepsetus:Meaningunknown;
“hepset”is theFrench common
name for anatherinid (Atherina
hepsetus).
odoe: from thenameof this fish in
Guinea.
The chemical composition of the water
plays no role, and the water temperature
can liebetween18and30 °C.Theaquarium
doesn’t need to be all that large, as
Hepsetus
are quiet fishes that don’t swim
around a lot. The minimum dimensions
suggested are around 4 x the actual body
lengthof the fish for the long sideand2-3
x the body length of the fish for the short
sideof theaquarium.Thedepthof the tank
be a good thing ifmore aquaristswere to
undertake the maintenance of the Pike
Characin. Were this fish to be bred
successfully in the aquarium – there have
beenno reportsof this todate– then,as in
thecaseof somany fish species, thismight
help to clarify important details regarding
the lifehistoryof
Hepsetusodoe
.
Afterword:A revisionof thegenus
Hepsetus
has just been published, in which a new
species is described, namely
Hepsetus
akawo
,and
H.cuvieri
isconfirmedasavalid
species. According to the authors, the
distribution of
H. odoe
is bounded by the
Senegal River (in Senegal) in thewest and
the Cavally River (Ivory Coast) in the east,
while the new species is distributed from
the Sassandra River (Ivory Coast) in the
hese caecilians were offered by the
exporter under the fine-sounding
nameof“AtingaTrapoNegraBlueEyes”,and
thatdescribesveryclearlythemostobvious
difference between this new caecilian and
the otherwise very similar species
Typhlonectes natans
from Colombia: the
comparatively largeeyes that reflectblue in
the light of the camera flash. Not without
reason is
Typhlonectes natans
popularly
known as the “blind eel” in the wholesale
trade, althoughneither part of thename is
correct: theseanimals areneither blindnor
are they inanyway related to theeels.But
T.
natans
hasonlyvery small eyes,overgrown
with skin.
The thirdgroupofamphibians
Every child knows that the amphibians are
T
In November 2011 Aquarium Glaser was able to import just two
specimensofaCaecilianworm fromPeru thatdoesn’t resembleanyof the
species importedpreviously.
AnewCaecilianworm
byMaxLeber
Almost through....
west to the Cross River (Cameroon) in the
east.The twospeciesareallopatric, inother
words theirdistributionsdonotoverlap.
References:
Decru, E. ,Vreven, E. and J. Snoeks (2012):A
revision of the West African Hepsetus
(Characiformes:
Hepsetidae) with a
descriptionofHepsetusakawo sp.nov.and
a redescription of Hepsetus odoe (Bloch,
1794).Journal ofNaturalHistory46 (1-2):1-
23 (printed10th.Nov.2011).
is of lesser importance. Plants are ignored
by
Hepsetus
, but the aquarium should not
be too brightly illuminated as otherwise
the Pike Characins will be shy. There is
much still to be learned about these
fantastic fishes,and for this reason itwould
Thenew caecilianworm fromPeru.
All photos:FrankSchäfer
divided into those with tails - newts,
salamanders, etc - and thosewithout – the
batrachians, ie frogs, toads, etc. But hardly
anyone is aware of the third group of
amphibians,
the caecilians. This is
undoubtedly because there are no
