LHG Creative Photography
hypselobarbus jerdoni
...or Jerdons Carp. From India. Christ alone knows what he was doing in the uk, another unwanted gift fish for some unrealistic idiot with a tiny tank in all probability.
This was a rescue, became a truly vast fish in the end, bout the size of a koi carp. He needed tropical temps though so had to go to an idiot like me with huge aquaria. He arrived to me with a fractured skull and meaty bits hanging out of it, but given the right conditions and meds its amazing how they recover. Really one for a 500 gallon tank plus, home aquarists should stay away from this species really. Too big, too fast, needs the diet variety and the heat. Those scales though, like cut diamonds. Beautiful.
Its probably also a critically endangered species, and should be enjoying the benefits of that legal status, but unfortunately the much needed studies and conservation work havent been done, and its river habitats are so damaged by chemical pollutants, overfishing and reclamation that some of the remaining specimens should be taken for captive living and breeding, india being india , no-one is going to save those river systems. Not that many people know about the species or how much danger its in. For most of the population its inevitable extinction over the next 20 years or so might pass completely unknown and unremarked, alongside a lot of other asian freshwater river species. Huge and tragic shame. Scary thing is , your more likely to find one of these languishing unwanted in a petshop in the UK than if you went to india and dragnetted the entire river.
If folks out there have these fish they ought to network up and convince a zoo or two to get a big shoal display going by donating their specimens and secure the species. They will have to act soon because with fish like this, if the genepool diversity drops too low, they will never recover. Thats another one to add to the 8000 plus species in danger directly because of our actions to add to the ever growing list.
Maaaan, 8000 species in danger, not specimens , not groups, but entire species, potentially millions of animals lost forever if we don't act . Think about it, how many of you can name 8000 species of animal at all, let alone which ones are actually in danger?
We are going to lose more animals than most of us have ever heard about , learned about, or ever knew existed. When you think how many of those are apex predators or lynchpins of entire reproductive systems in nature for bacteria through to plants and dozens of other species who will in turn become endangered, the extinction rate is going to start accelerating , perhaps one day to a geometric level. Its genuinely scary stuff.
Sometimes it just hits me. (head hits hands).
hypselobarbus jerdoni
...or Jerdons Carp. From India. Christ alone knows what he was doing in the uk, another unwanted gift fish for some unrealistic idiot with a tiny tank in all probability.
This was a rescue, became a truly vast fish in the end, bout the size of a koi carp. He needed tropical temps though so had to go to an idiot like me with huge aquaria. He arrived to me with a fractured skull and meaty bits hanging out of it, but given the right conditions and meds its amazing how they recover. Really one for a 500 gallon tank plus, home aquarists should stay away from this species really. Too big, too fast, needs the diet variety and the heat. Those scales though, like cut diamonds. Beautiful.
Its probably also a critically endangered species, and should be enjoying the benefits of that legal status, but unfortunately the much needed studies and conservation work havent been done, and its river habitats are so damaged by chemical pollutants, overfishing and reclamation that some of the remaining specimens should be taken for captive living and breeding, india being india , no-one is going to save those river systems. Not that many people know about the species or how much danger its in. For most of the population its inevitable extinction over the next 20 years or so might pass completely unknown and unremarked, alongside a lot of other asian freshwater river species. Huge and tragic shame. Scary thing is , your more likely to find one of these languishing unwanted in a petshop in the UK than if you went to india and dragnetted the entire river.
If folks out there have these fish they ought to network up and convince a zoo or two to get a big shoal display going by donating their specimens and secure the species. They will have to act soon because with fish like this, if the genepool diversity drops too low, they will never recover. Thats another one to add to the 8000 plus species in danger directly because of our actions to add to the ever growing list.
Maaaan, 8000 species in danger, not specimens , not groups, but entire species, potentially millions of animals lost forever if we don't act . Think about it, how many of you can name 8000 species of animal at all, let alone which ones are actually in danger?
We are going to lose more animals than most of us have ever heard about , learned about, or ever knew existed. When you think how many of those are apex predators or lynchpins of entire reproductive systems in nature for bacteria through to plants and dozens of other species who will in turn become endangered, the extinction rate is going to start accelerating , perhaps one day to a geometric level. Its genuinely scary stuff.
Sometimes it just hits me. (head hits hands).