Kutubu - aqua, International Journal of Ichthyology · Olivier Meric is from Limoge, France. He came to Tage as a volunteer to help the Foi people build the lodge. Honor Gay is a

Lake Kutubu is a crystal clear lake in the Southern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea.

It is the largest upland lake of Papua New Guinea with an area of 49.24 km², while its total

catchment area is 250 km². The lake is a dream, almost unique on planet Earth, but this dream

lake is threatened…

Text and Fotos by Heiko Bleher & Natasha Khardina

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Lake Kutubu is a crystal clear lake in the Southern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea.

It is the largest upland lake of Papua New Guinea with an area of 49.24 km², while its total

catchment area is 250 km². The lake is a dream, almost unique on planet Earth, but this dream

lake is threatened…

Text and Fotos by Heiko Bleher & Natasha Khardina

Kutubu

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The sharp cry of the Raggiana birdof paradise woke me up. The sunhad not quite risen, but a beautiful

silver-gray fog mirrored the surface ofLake Kutubu. This second largest lake ofPapua New Guinea lies in the foothills ofthe Southern Highlands province, 800metres above sea level. This unspoiled,magnificent lake reflects the serene beau-ty of the surrounding rugged terrain. Ithad not been seen by civilized men untilOctober 18, 1936.

The tranquillity of the valley was bro-ken this morning by the splash of aWasemi tribesman’s paddle as he rowedout in his dugout to catch crawfish withhis hands. The damp morning fog roseslowly upwards over hundreds of sagopalm trees. I took in this scene fromTage, an elevated spot at the northwestend of the 19-kilometre long, 4-kilome-tre wide lake. There we had spent thenight in a small (one-room) hut built bythe Foi tribe. Except for the mosquitoscreen and mattresses, it was construct-ed entirely out of primitive, jungle-grown materials.

As I stepped out onto the narrow porch,I recalled explorer Ivan Champion’swords upon his first setting foot here:“With green wooded shores and islands,with blue water like the sea because ofits great depth, and pleasant climate ow-ing to its altitude of 260 feet, I thought itwas Paradise!“ The view was astound-ing… and it is still a paradise!

I ran down the hill to the shore tobrush my teeth and to have another lookat those unbelievable rainbowfish,Melanotaenia lacustris. Described byMurno in 1964, this fish belongs to acomplex of highland-dwelling rainbow-fishes, which also includes M. herbert -axelrodi, M. monticola, M. kamaka andM. lakamora. The fish is endemic toLake Kutubu, into which no major riverflows. There is only one outlet – theSoro River, which flows into the KikoriRiver – but Melanotaenia lacustrisdoesn’t seem to follow it.

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To reach this remote lake one has to first fly withAir Nuigini (top) to its capital city Port Moresby

and from there with a smaller aircraft to the Highland village Mendi (centre). Mendi which

is built in a lush valley between impressive limestone peaks. It has essential services and its

Hula tribes people even modern play cricket here (right).

KutubuI thought it was paradise

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a mishap, which was not Neil’s fault.He showed me some sharp, perfectcolour slides of this unique rainbow. Icouldn’t wait to start searching forthem!

Early next morning he drove me toMelbourne on his way to work. Togeth-er with ichthyologist Pat Clark, I caughta flight to Cairns and connected withAir Nuguini to Port Moresby. Previous-ly I had searched for a seine, jungleequipment, and fish medication. Thelatter was obtained with much ado froma local vet. In Port Moresby I visited thelively, colourful Koki market. I amlured to this place each time I come, tothe fantastic displays of fishes and na-tive fruit. Unfortunately, rapid growth inthis area has brought tremendouschanges; old traditions disappear andare replaced by modern practices. It hadbeen over two years since I had visitedthis port on the world’s second largestisland (after Greenland) and I wasshocked buy the change, the so-called“progress“.

The Bandeirante aircraft, made inBrazil for Talair, departed punctually at7:45 AM for Mendi. We flew over therocky southern coast, then northwardacross dense jungle. We swept overrivers, mountains, and waterfalls,stopped in Tari and at 9:30 we reachedthe gateway to the southern highlands.

A chartered plane waited for us inMendi. I had telephoned earlier to con-firm this arrangement. (Surprisingly, thephone – usually unreliable in Papua –actually worked!) The pilot, Peter, wasa native Australian. Before making thefinal approach at 11:30 at the tiny Pima-ga airstrip, he circled to give me aglimpse of my destination: the leg-endary Lake Kutubu. The airport man-ager (who also runs the only bank andstore in town) welcomed us. He alsopersuaded Peter to take some strandedpassengers back on the return flight

From Mendi the only way to reach lake Kutubu is by charter flight. In both occasions of my visits I chartered a small missionary Cessna

plane (top), which dropped me at Pimaga, the nearest village with a landing strip. Flying

over dense Jungle high up one can only see once in a while below remote native village, in a

world for itself (centre). The landing strip of Pimaga, built by the local tribes people

for the missionary plane came in sight after an hours flight (right).

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transparent water and illuminated thesegraceful fish, just like an infiniteamount of aquamarine magnificently re-fracted by the gentle light. These pre-cious stones have fascinated me eversince my childhood in Brazil. Especial-ly when diamond-cut, their shiny,sparkling blue colours are comparableto those of this rainbowfish. With eachripple of water, a different blue-green-gold reflection shone; from every anglea different colour sparkled.

Only five days earlier I had a deliciousdinner prepared by Connie and Pim, thewives of Dr. Gerald R. Allen and HorstKipper. We sat in Horst’s secluded hide-away about 40 kilometres south of Perthin Western Australia. Jerry showed me aphoto of a rainbowfish taken by NeilArmstrong. My interest stirred, I decid-ed to extend my business trip and gosearch for this unique fish. So (at mid-night and with high hopes), I was off tosee Neil, 4000 km east in Melbourne. Iarrived later that morning.

Neil is a very dear friend and a fishenthusiast par excellence! He is an ex-pert on Australia and New Guineanfishes. He devotes himself to the studyof them (when he isn’t standing behindthe press of Melbourne’s largest news-paper or listening to Schubert or Mozarton his incredible hi-fi). Not only doesNeil know which creek, river, lake, orshore the various colour forms comefrom, he also knows who discoveredthem and much of their history. His fishmemory is like a computer: he is able torecall every known fact.

Neil also breeds fish in his backyardgreenhouse among beautifully cared forEchinodorus osiris, E. bleherae, andother plants. These he received manyyears ago from my mother when im-ports to Australia were still allowed. Butof the few M. lacustris given to Neil byJerry, only one female survived, due to

Huli, Duna and other tribes people from this areaare famous for their red and yellow face decora-tions and elaborately decorated wigs. They carevery much to conserve their old traditions.Women always carry their young around (top) ortake them to wherever they go and continuouslywork, besides taking care of the house and theconstruction, carry the crop to the distant dailythey still wave their colourful carrying bags (cen-tre). While the man hunt or take care of their pets(left). The Papuas are extreme animal friendly.



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my life (the first was when I had a heartattack in 1975). And after finding theincredible Melanotaenia boesemani in1983, I didn’t dream of finding a possi-bly even more beautiful fish. Yet there Istood before a gold mine. Pizarro could-n’t have felt more excited when hestood in front of Atahualpa’s ransomroom, filled with more than 24 tons ofgold.

There were innumerable fish, eachwith a luminous gold stripe runningfrom the mouth over the back into thedorsal fin. Steel-blue-coloured bodiesturning sometimes into navy and cobalt,greenish colours that faded to forestgreen and chartreuse, flashes of brightyellow and white, along with blood-redand rose tints. A rainbowfish as tremen-dous as this certainly never existed! Thecreatures swam gracefully in small andlarge groups. It seemed that they hadtaken possession of the lake; few otherfish appeared.

Asisi, a Wasemi tribesman, took us ona two-hour boat ride from Geseke to theother end of the lake where KutubuLodge is located. He rowed along thedense, rocky shoreline and past twolarge islands. Tage is the name of thespot where the lodge rests. From 1949to 1951, Tage was the site of an old po-lice station. Back then they conductedregular Catalina landings at Tage. Thefantastic view of Kutubu and WasemiIsland makes it easy to see why this lo-cation was chosen. The area surround-ing Tage is unbelievably beautiful. TheGarden of Eden must have looked likethis…

The lodge (built in 1985) consists offour huts and a long house. Olivier andHonor (Adam and Eve?) welcomed us.Olivier Meric is from Limoge, France.He came to Tage as a volunteer to helpthe Foi people build the lodge. HonorGay is a botanist working for OxfordUniversity. At the time, she was study-ing insects in the Lake Kutubu region.She prepared a delicious potato pie din-ner for us in almost total darkness onour first night there. Afterwards I slept,completely content, knowing that I hadfinally discovered Paradise.

Here I was, daydreaming with thetoothbrush in my hand (the paste haddried up), when I realized that Pat hadjoined me to admire the jewel-like fish.


The tiny “airport house” at Pimaga has no personal (1). But locals come to the small plane with curiosity, as such an event is very rare. We packed up and start-ed to walk the nearly 40 km to the shores of lake Kutubu. Fortunately I always found some one in Pimaga to help to carry the heavy equipment (2). Along thiswalk we came across members of the Fasu tribe (3). It is a long walk crossing many small creeks where the primitive bridges are always washed away (4), butover some larger creeks the Fasu built a palm-leave roofs and they stand up (5). Along the walking path we always came by Fasu houses (6).

otherwise they would have to male afour-week walk! Then Peter was off,leaving us with the promise that hewould return in three days at 9:30 AM.It seemed that the entire population ofPimaga awaited us. Visit from foreign-ers are a rare thing here especially “outof the blue!“

We soon found that Phillip, a realcharacter, ran the show in this town. Heowns the only existing vehicle: a tinybright yellow Suzuki. He said, “If I getfuel, I’ll drive you to Kutubu”. With hisknow-how and high I.Q. on our side,we were soon our way down the nar-row, twisting jungle track at a averagespeed of over 120 km/hr! Others hadtold us that we could expect to lose atire or doors along the way, but we ar-rived two hours later with the car intact.Our own bodies, however, sufferedfrom bumps and bruises. Geseke is thename of the tiny village where we ar-rived. It lies on the eastern end of thelake. It consists of three huts, and oldtractor (in disrepair for many years) anda few long dugouts that each measuredup to 25 metres.

While Pat and Phillip were unloading,I rushed down to the shore to where asmall spring trickled into the transparentlake. I threw some cereal onto the sur-face and immediately hundreds of fan-tastically colourful fish were attracted.My heart stopped for the second time in

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To see an old man like this Fasu (1), is extreme rare, their live expectancy is normally below 40 years of age. Although all of the hardly 50 known bird of par-adise species are protected, they are still hunted by locals and offered to tourists, even in this remote region (2). Birds of paradise are endemic to New Guineaand some its surrounding islands. The Fasu tribe people are wide spread in the Kikori river catchment and living in remote tiny villages, therefore the childrenare very shy (3-6). Most of them have hardly ever seen a white man. It rains almost every day in the Southern Highlands and we were very happy when it start-ed again coming down in buckets, that we were invited to a man’s Longhouse (12). Every man in such a 71 m long Longhouse has his “bed” and one was givento me and also part of their food (9). They prepared it especially for me (7). But what looked terrible, like blood mixed with some thing else, which was sago(10), is actually delicious. The red paste is made from the flower of the local Pandanus tree (8). It rained for hours and the small boy trying to join us slit againand gain down hill (13-14). These Longhouses have no window, the only opening at each side of the 71 meter is a door (11).

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The only outlet of the 800 m high Lake Kutubu is the Kikori River. It rains almost daily in this reagion and even under tormenting rain at one of my expedition,were Gerald R. Allen came along, the famous ichthyologist who publishes regular in our aqua, International Journal of Ichthyology and who has done severalfield trips with me, did not mind to catch fishes with me (1). During that expedition we went up and down the Kikori river to do further research (2). The Fasu

and also the Foe, which live around Lake Kutubu, have as their only way of transport always a dugout made from a single tree (3). At the southern end of thelake, where the track ends, is a small Foe settlement and from here one has to access the lake Kutubu by boat, there is no other way (4). On this journey besidesAllen also the Belgian, Monique Nicolai, came along. But once we reached the open lake it started to rain again very heavy, everything in the boat got wet…



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At 7:00 AM we had just finished ourbreakfast of uki (breadfruit) and banana,when Asisi arrived to take us around thelake.

I will never forget the following twodays. No place on earth could be morepeaceful, or colourful, than here. If Iwrote down everything I observed, itwould fill a book. I can only relate afew of the highlights of our stay.

Lake Kutubu is supplied with clearmountain water by subterranean sourcesand small creeks. I hiked up a few ofthe creek beds, which are of limestonecovered with soft green ferns. I climbedover them, past gorgeous orchids andabari (the spiny Pandanus with a darkred flower). These brooks generally endafter a short distance, in forest or rockyterrain. Here, near the lake, grew bam-boo trees of formidable size and the fa-mous Campnosperma brevipetiolatatrees. Natives tap tigasso oil from thelatter and sell it do highlanders, who rubit on their bodies to make themselveslook attractive for ritual songfests.Aquatic plants grew everywhere, asdeep as 7 metres below the surface. Therichness in plant variety included Cer-atophyllum demersum, Ottelia alis-moides, Limnophila indica, Hydrillaverticillata, Potamogeton pusillus, mil-lions of Nitella pseudoflabellata, thetiny white flowering Polygonum attenu-atum, blood-red giant Vallisneriaspecies, and a gorgeous Blyxa.

The Foe, who live in 12 villages around the lake, consist of about 2,500people. The villages are principally sago subsistence agriculturist, withsago providing 75% of their food volume. Their hoses are all made of tra-ditional materials (1-2). In one part of the lake, where it has its greatestdepth of 70 m a high rock formation (3) emerges from the water. The Foehave carved places into this rock where they lay their ancestors. They ex-pose them to the lake-side, cranium next to cranium and bones standingup against the wall, for every man or woman who paddles along is able tosee his ancestor (4). The local people have also built a nice lodge (5) to al-low visitors to observe traditional life in comfortable surroundings, whichis constructed of bush materials. Butterflies (6-7) and Birds of Paradiseare common in this area. The view is dream-like (8) and the lakes shoreedged by incredible vegetation and many aquatic plants (9).

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Early in the morning, before sunrise they Foe paddle into the lake, which in most places is hardly 3-4 m deep, to catch the abundant crayfish, their only sourceof protein (they do not eat the fishes here). The fog over the lake rises slowly in the early morning and the peace one inhales here is just not to believe…

… this to me is paradise. I do not believe there is anything similar on planet Earth, such beautiful surroundings, untouched nature and native tribes living theirancient traditions and culture for millenniums, and a priceless peace.

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The fish fauna consists of only 12species, including six eleotrids, a ploto-sid (Oloplotosus toboro), an atherinid(Craterocephalus lacustris), a thera-ponid (Hephaestus adamsoni), 8 gobiids(Glossogobius and Mogurnda spp.) andthe only melanotaeniid: Melanotaenialacustris. All, except of an eleotrid(Oxyleotris fimbriata) and the intro-duced mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis),appear to be endemic. The water tem-perature in the lake went from 26.0°C.(Highest during midday at the shore) to21.4°C (at midnight). The pH of the lakevaried from 8.7 to 9, except for one lowof 7.8 measured near a merging creek.

While there I also visited the amazingWasemi tribes people. They live just astheir ancestors did centuries ago. I waswelcomed by the chief (it took me sometime to teach him the Western custom ofhandshaking!) in front of the traditional213-foot-long, 16-foot-high longhousefor the men. With Asisi translating, heexplained to me the social roles of malesand females here. There is a marked seg-regation of the sexes. The women haveseparate house, called a kanya.

I was shown the gardens where thewomen cultivate a large variety of plants.Two kinds of yams – yatafa and hogo –are grown, as well as four types of cab-bage: gagana, harase, garubaio, andsagai. The main vegetable is anumu, acucumber. Also cultivated are sago palmtrees, the leaves of which are used toweave the beautiful roof, wall, and mat-tress designs of the Wasemi people.

As for the fish, well… I thought itwould be no problem to wait until theend of our two-day stay to collect them,because of the abundance. That was amistake!

The afternoon and evening of our lastday, I tried to seine them with Pat’s help,but they outsmarted us all the time. Dueto the clarity of the water, they saw usand always swam out of the net before itwas ashore… Finally, when I used themethods adopted during my Brunei ex-pedition (see TFH, May 1987), I waslucky. Standing on the rocky bottom in1.5 meter deep water, I dipped my handnet and spit ghastly biscuit bits at shortintervals on the water surface. They sunkunder water into a foot-square net open-ing and the rainbowfish went after it!Late that night I had a few, but my body

became chilled standing for hours in thewater and Pat was tired holding the plas-tic bag. What a situation: millions of fisharound and hardly one in the net…

The following four days were an ad-venture from a comic book. During thelong boat ride in the early morning backto Geseke I packed the precious fish inan old rotten suitcase, for which I hadpaid $150 at Koki market. Although Ihad a permit I wanted to avoid prob-lems at customs when leaving the coun-try and I thought nobody would pay at-tention to a piece of luggage such asthis. Philip, who had promised to pick usup and bring us in time to our charteredplane, arrived two hours late at Geseke.He had run out of fuel. When we finallyreached Pimaga, we only saw the tail ofour aircraft. This made us miss the con-necting flight to mount Hagen, fromwhere the next day (a Sunday) the onlycommercial flight at 1:00 PM wouldleave for Port Moresby, connecting withthe weekly flight, we were stuck for anentire week and the fish, too… Whichmeant they would probably die.

Pimaga’s radio broke down just afterwe finally had contact with the airlinecharter office in Mendi. It was 12 noonand closed for the weekend. They didn’thave radio contact again until 7:00 PM.While we sat in the grass in front of theold wooden mission-hut waiting, giantleeches attacked us in masses. I had on-ly seen large leeches like this in Myan-mar (Burma) before, but there they livein the water of the Inle Lake.

At 7:00 PM sharp, the radio came onthe air and I talked to the mission onMt. Hagen. After explaining the situa-tion, with interruptions every 3 seconds,they said: “Unfortunately our religiondoesn’t permit us to fly on Sundays!The seventh day is a day to rest… “Now, I really had a problem; I knew myfish couldn’t read the Bible and theywould die. How would I explain it tothem? Knowing that the communicationwould be cut off any second, I justscreamed – half crying, full of angerand disappointment – for them to con-tact any local charter company or pilotto send us a plane early next morning,at any cost! The radio suddenly wentdead. I didn’t even know if they re-ceived the message and we couldn’t getany new communication. I stayed


There are 14 species of freshwater fishes in the lake, but only one rainbowfish species, Melanotaenia lacustris. This fantastic fish I was able to collect for the first time alive many years ago (1). Today this is one of the favourite rainbowfishes in the hobby around the world and all came from the few specimens I brought back alive… Its amazing colours can vary very much, from steel blue (2) to an

emerald green (3) it can turn to green and blue, silvery below (4), or completely dark blue in secondslater (5) and even into other colours. In the aquarium (6), while opening its mouth it can be very lightcoloured with a yellow golden stripe and light green above.

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The lake’s extraordinary level of endemicity (10 of the 14 fish species found there are endemic to the lake itself) exceeds that of any other lake in the entire NewGuinea-Australian region. The endemic species, besides the rainbowfish species, which is the only one found in the lake, include gobies. Atherinids and one cat-fish, and some of those I want to show here: There are 9 different gobiids, a speciation of that group of fishes unknown to any other lake in the world. There isthe Lake Kutubu mogurnda (Mogurnda kutubuensis), which changes its colour pattern from baby (1) to semi-adult (2-3) and once it has reached about 25 cm inlength it turns yet black (not shown). The blotched mogurnda (Mogurnda spilota) is a beauty (4), as well as variegated mogurnda (Mogurnda variegata) (5) andboth of those stay small, hardly 7 cm in TL. Also the only Glossogobius species in the lake (6) does not grow larger and its males have the bump, which normallyfound in some of the American and African cichlids (inserted photo).

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The largest fish in the lake is the predatory and not endemic gobiid: Oxyeleotris fimbriatus (7). In may grow to over 30 cm TL and is wide distributed in New Guinea. It can walk over land and survive in extreme habitats. The only hardy head in the lake is again endemic, the so called Kutubu hardyhead (Craterocephalus lacustris) (8). This species has been photographed here for the first time, as we had not found it before, it lives in the open water over the deep-est part of the lake. Also the Adamson's grunter (Hephaestus adamsoni), lives in deeper waters. I call these, the Australasian Hephaestus, the cichlids of the fifthcontinent (as there are no cichlids in Asia besides in India, and none on Australasia). Here a juvenile and an adult (9-10). There was also, on one of the expedi-tion, the aim I had to collect for the first time alive the highest rainbowfish, Melanoatenia monticola (12). While in Mendi waiting for some days for the charterplane to Pimaga, I went to mountain stream over 1,800 m high and was able to collect it. Together with an unidentified juvenile gobiid (11).



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awake all night I couldn’t sleep after thesago palm-meat dinner. It looks likewhite marshmallow and is totally taste-less, but is the main food source of alllocals. How they survive on it is a mys-tery to me. At 10:00 AM we figuredeverything was in vain. It takes 2½hours to fly to Mt. Hagen and AirNuguini’s departure to Port Moresbywas at 1:00 PM! Then we saw a Cessna172 on the horizon.

The next shock was flying at 3000 me-ters high. The small aircraft had no pres-surization. The top of my suitcase liftedand all my fish bags burst! Picture this:rainbows all over the rear end of theplane, jumping around, and me in themiddle trying to catch them for the sec-ond time! I was thrown from one side tothe other while the pilot fought the terri-ble turbulence in these high mountains.

With almost no water in the repackagedbags, we landed at Mt. Hagen, 15 min-utes before Air Nuguini’s scheduled de-parture to Port Moresby. Adding moun-tain water to the fish and getting a bite(we were both starved), we almost did-n’t make it after all. When I saw theBoeing 737 blowing the turbines at fullpower and doors closed, I just threwmyself with my fish-suitcase in front ofthe aircraft and forced the captain tostop. While he lowered the emergencystairs, he screamed out of his windowall known and unknown names and dur-ing the flight he gave me a lecture oncoming late… what did he know?!

After fights with customs in PortMoresby (150 kinga – over $150 –more or less didn’t bother me), the char-tered flight was $1,600 one way, the to-tal cost was already more than $15,000

AUSTRALASIA AUSTRALASIAAUSTRALASIA AUSTRALASIAto collect these jewels, we flew thatevening to Cairns, where the Australiancustoms insisted (at midnight) that wedestroy the fish. No live animal or anyanimal product is allowed into the coun-try, not even in transit! It didn’t help toexplain that Melanotaenia is a genuscommon to Australia nor that I hadasked (prior to my expedition in Canber-ra, the capital, and at the QueenslandMuseum in Brisbane) Roly McCay,ichthyologist and the authority, to bringa few fish in transit. Customs peoplewere stubborn. At 3:00 AM, after gettingthe responsible people in Canberra outof bed, I had a 48-hour transit permit. At6:00 AM, I left for Melbourne, so didthe fish-suitcase sealed with lead. A spe-cial quarantine vehicle and a crew inwhite awaited the “dangerous“ load atthe other end the same evening. Plutoni-

um couldn’t be handled more carefully!Special staff watched me in the totallydisinfected area during my water changeand re-oxygenation of the fish. Theygave me special containers, and anyused plastic bags, rubber band, and wa-ter were destroyed immediately. I had todisinfect myself before and after I en-tered the station. Totally exhausted, Iwas hosted by dear Neil late that nightand finally the net day I was headingback to Germany.

Twenty-nine hours later at Frankfurt

airport, they couldn’t find the fish. Qantas’ cargo department said they had never embarked in Melbourne! I made several long distance calls to Australia. I asked Neil and Rick to help,called the quarantine station, but nobody knew where they had disap-peared! After all of this trouble I could-n’t believe it. When I was about to give up, the suitcase was found in London! Most of the 67 Melanotaenialacustris had survived!

I slept for 16 hours after this shock,

while my jewels started to thrive in myhome aquarium where some of the original wild fish still live happily today. In the meantime this fantasticallycolourful fish has conquered the world. Now there is another incrediblybeautiful rainbowfish for the joy ofeverybody, one more in the line ofmany (almost all) melanotaeniids andpseudomugilids I have introduced tothis, the most beautiful and educationalhobby in the world… And some moreto come…

On one of the expedition, while photographing the beauties from the lake, I had a constant vistor: a hornbill. He watched me and was eager to get some of mybananas all the time (1-2). Hornbills are found from Africa throughout many parts of Oceania and are very peaceful beautiful birds. On the trip to Lake Kutubuwith Gerald R. Allen, we had luck and there was a tiny jeep in Pimaga who took us the 40 km to the lake (3). But on the way back there was no further go as abridge had collapsed and we headed back by boat on the Kikori (4). On the chartered flight, because the small aircraft had to go over 3000 m high my plastic bagsbusted and the rainbowfishes were swimming on the floor of the Cessna (5). And I had to do another Lake Kutubu journey, but without regret, as it is paradise…



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AUSTRALASIA Kali BiruKali Biru AUSTRALASIAIfantenIfanten

Two biotope aquariums from New Guinea onthese two pages.1. One authentic biotope for rainbowfishesfrom lake Kali Biru in Iraian jaya (also calledWest Papua or Papua Barat today). The KaliBiru is actually a very small lake situated inthe middle of nowhere and only access ableby walking. When I first visited it in 1999 Iwas able to catch this beautiful rainbowfishfor the first time, which was described twoyears later by G. R. Allen as Glossolepis dorityi (2). I had called it the red zigzag rain-bowfish. The lake if very deep (it is a karstand it water comes from deep undergroundpowerful up to its surface) and immediatelyat its edged already drops deep down, noplace to enter except for swimming and div-ing. And unfortunately on my first trip I wasonly able to catch males (which I found outlater, being a news species…). So I had to return. The first collecting was ex-tremely difficult so I wanted to be smarterthe second time. Finally with a gill net of 50 m length and 6 m deep, I got after hoursamong hundreds of fallen in trees 5 speci-mens (3). But only one was a female. Anyhowit made it possible to bring back alive andbreed it, and all those today in the hobby arefrom that second attempt. The decoration should be similar to its habi-tat (1) being: Fishes in a 200 l aquarium (theshown one has 400 l) about 40 G. dorityi and20 Chilatherina fasciata “orange” which arealso found in this lake and available in thehobby as well. The decoration consisting ofmedium sized light coloured gravel, somesandy area, drift wood (plenty) and red lavaor karst stones (or both).For aquatic plants only Microsorium pteropusare growing here. One can ad some floatingplants, as Pistia or Salvinia species. As for thewater parameters these are not sensitive fish-es and used to hard water, pH can be over 8(anywhere from 7.0 to 9.0), and the conduc-tivity 300 μS/cm or more and the tempera-ture from 22 to 28°C. A normal external bio-logical filter is suggested.

4. Biotope also Lake Ifanten, is a relativelysmall lake, but contrary to Kali Biru it is surrounded only by high grass and not a

single tree (6). This second rainbowfishbiotope I want to suggest to you, is for my so

called millennium rainbowfish, because I discovered together with Natasha, in 2001,

at the begin of our new millennium and alsobecause it has the most striking red coloursever seen in a rainbowfish (5). For decades

G. R. Allen and myself have tried to findGlossolepis pseudoincisus, without luck.

We never found it at its type locality in theTami River. But from the many landing in

Sentani, Irian Jaya, I had on several small charter flights located a high and re-

motre lake and always wanted to do some research on it, but

could never reach it. Until one day I found a Dani, who explained who

to get there and during a days walk wereached it. The very first collected

specimens looked pale and I thought nothing special, but took it along.

Within three month it became this bright red colour – unbelievable,

but only the males.The biotope should consist as shown (4)

of a group of these fishes (as besides a snakehead, nothing else lives in this former

crater lake) according to your pocket. But I suggest no less than 20,

better 30 to enjoy. They are fantastic fishes for itself,

although if one wants can always add some gobies and a other

rainbowfish species. For aquatic vegetation only Nymphaea,

some grass-like aquatic vegetation (i.e. Cyperus), and Microsorium

is to recommend. Decoration with lava stone and sand, maybe some rocks.

The water parameters vary, the pH from 7 to 8.5, the conductivity

goes up to 300 μS/cm and the temperatures from 21-30°C.

INFORMATIONS FOR THE AQUARIUMINFORMATIONS FOR THE AQUARIUM


Documents

Kutubu - aqua, International Journal of Ichthyology · Olivier Meric is from Limoge, France. He came to Tage as a volunteer to help the Foi people build the lodge. Honor Gay is a