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Nice to hear you're finding new species Could/Would you look for or photograph Apistogramma species? I would be happy to hear what you find, especially if you're entering unknown territories!

My 2 dream vacations, Lake Malawi and South America. Can you collect your own colonies of plecos to breed. I would probably want to collect 2-3 species that are in the same vacinity. I would definetly want to get a hypancistrus. Can anyone tell me what a good collecting place is to get 2-3 species that have been bred in the aquarium.

Florida would be a good place to find some aquarium denizens lurking.

yeah, but rooting around hipdeep in a pond with your seine-net, twiddling your toes to Snapping Turtles and the odd Gator or Cottonmouth isn't exactly safe

Don't forget the Manatees and Dolphins. And Iguanas. And Channel Cats. They have an odd tendency to live together.
Amanda

yeah, but those are harmless!

encountering a Manatee would be fun; but loosing half your foot in a gaping Alligator-turtle maw is something else.....

Well aren't there caymans and matamatas in the Amazon?

Matamata is a very gentle turtle with a softer mouth wich 'sucks' small fish inside. it also is very mild mannered, timid and quite docile; very different from the belligerent Snapping- and Alligatorturtle. Think of it as the "Chaca" in the turtleworld, NOT the "Bagarius" of the turtleworld.

a lot smaller as well; the shell maxes out at 1 foot or a few inches more; the neck and head together have a similar length. total length 2-2,5 feet for an adult when stretched. the prey taken by Matamata's is usually minnowsize (anything from guppy-size to 8" or so, but they prefer small fish).
they're incapable of attacking bigger prey and biting off chuncks, they simply lack both cutting edges or jawpower to do so. So they cannot bite off half a foot; something for wich any Snapper doesn't even have to break sweat.....

Caymans too are quite different from Alligators; Caymans are quite shy (they're hunted severely and shun man) and small. the biggest species is the Black Cayman wich is reported to reach 12 feet max, but specimen that large are extremely rare due to overhunting. most of the time they reach half that size (2 meters for adult males). they shun man, and reported Cayman-attacks are very very rare, if true at all. To see Caymans up close, you need to go out at night in a canoe, switch off the outboard and use a big strobe or flashlight. they hide during the day.

Also; Caymans have a different way of feeding; they prefer to swallow prey whole. fish, rodents, smaller reptiles, snakes and the like; but not like the Nile crocodile or the salty wich is used to attack big prey and do the famous deathroll to rip off leggs and such. the Cayman doesn't hunt like that, unless it's a dead animal.

much easier to encounter stepping on a freshwaterstingray or something.

The only dangerous croc in South America is the Orinoco crocodile wich is a true crocodile (not a gator or cayman); this one is highly threathened, but big and very similar to the ones shown on TV.

In Central America there are a few like that; very rare, true, big crocs. Doesn't the Mississippi-delta house a small population of endangered true crocs as well? or are they extinct?

I was fortunate to see one of the few living American Crocs. I hope she lived through the hurricanes from a few years ago. She lives at the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island. The rangers cordoned off the area with yellow tape so we wouldn't step on her turf. (Now I really need to find those pictures!)

Crocodilian species list

Janne

I'm not trying to infringe on anybody's finacial situation but I'm sure there is alot of us that would like to do a trip like this.

I was wondering approx. how much it costs to go on a trip like this cause I would like to do one in the next couple of years.

There was ONE answer to that in the Loricariidae forum. That trip, which is an arranged one with a company that does fish-collecting as a business... $1395, not including flights to Iquitos (or wherever it was the trip starts from). That would be a pretty "high-end" deal, but probably good for the beginners. Depending on where you fly from and what deals are available, flights may well cost the same or more again.

Less "high end" trips will cost you less, but then you'll have to do more of "your own" arrangements - like if you know what you're doing (like Shane), you can find your own accomodation and find your own fishing spots. If you don't know what you're doing, you need someones help, and they'll want some money for helping you out...

--
Mats

i am hoping to travel to brazil. in september this year if at all possible. this would be my first time in brazil and would like to go in a group. is anyone interested? i live in manchester uk. let me know guys.

Home again, home again!
I suspect Jools and Whitepine are still in the air with a lot of travel time remaining. All went very well with some minor disasters. We lost a day trying to use Cano Gamboa as a shortcut from the main Amazon channel over to the Rio Yavari. After too many hours of trying to chop/push/row our way through (the entire cano had become clogged with plants and turned into one giant floating meadow) we were forced to turn back to Leticia and had to access the Yavari the next day via its mouth at Benjamin Constant. We were scheduled to fly out of Leticia on 15th, but, after 10 hours at the airport, the flight was cancelled and we did not get out until the afternoon of the 16th. Luckily we had scheduled an extra day in Bogota at the end of the trip so everyone was still ok for today's flights home.
Whitepine took some great digital footage and Jools and I many, many photos. Unfortunately, we loaded everything on Jool's laptop to free up memory cards and never burned the files to CD. Jools now has pretty much all of our photos with him.
-Shane

Welcome back, Shane, and I await Jools with the photos from your expedition with anticipation. Your trip reminds me of the stories I read as a child about trips into mosquito-infested jungles in search of tropical fish.

Again, welcome back.

Dave

I just got back from the airport and am quarantining fish. I had an awesome inspector at the Newark airport, and will post some pictures of some of the fish I got back with. Jools is still in the air and probably really tired. I had an Awesome time... now I just need a vacation.

Cheers, Whitepine



A Local artist made these up for us!

Justy,
The Ancistrus you passed me in Bogota all made it as well and look to be in good shape. I could also use a week off to recover!
-Shane

Really cool map, Whitepine! What would be good, if you could be so kind, Shane, Justin, Jools, or anybody with the experience: can you please outline what preparations are needed for such an undertaking? I would imagine this is not for beginners nor those expecting 5 star accomodations. I imagine there's a lot of thought and preparation(never mind previous experience) that goes into this.
Amanda

Shane, Justin, Jools, or anybody with the experience: can you please outline what preparations are needed for such an undertaking?

Well, I still have the circa 150 e-mails the three of us exchanged before the trip and can forward them if you want the whole story

Basically there was pre-trip planning that included the basics like hotel reservations, plane tickets, clothing packing lists, collecting packing lists, medications, etc.

There was pre-trip planning of where to go and, more importantly, what time of the year to go and what we might encounter.

Daily planning on the ground included arranging where to go each day, transportation there (boat or vehicle), purchasing fuel, having food and water for the day, having the necessary collecting gear, holding tubs/bottles/bags for fish, and other odds and ends (ruler, thermometer, global positioning system, cameras, bug spray, sun screen, etc, etc).
There is also daily care and photography of collected animals.
Not to mention washing the next day's clothes in the sink, finding dinner, taking care of wounds and bug bites, fiting in a cold beer or two, etc.

Then you do the nightly water changes, put the fish outside for the night so they stay warm (since you will be turning on the AC), apply anti-itch cream, crawl in bed and sleep a few hours. Then get up, bring the fish in, do water changes again, return fishes that were only collected for photo purposes to the river, eat some breakfast, and start working out the next day's boat, gas, food, etc.

That may all sound pretty dry, but those are the day to day mechanics. In between all the above you get rained on, sunburned, slip in the mud, fall in the river, get eaten by flys, mosquitos and insects unknown, and walk into sunken logs and submersed thorn bushes.

While all the above is going on you pull up a net full of adult wild angel fish, watch a macaw fly over your head, look at the amazing jungle around you, smile at your buddy on the other end of the net and realize you have died and gone to heaven.
-Shane

Dave Rinaldo wrote:It will be a presentation at CSG and All Aquarium Catfish Convention 2006

Will it?

Jools

Got home yesterday morning, back to work today, pics and videos (oh yeah) will be forthcoming once I sift through 4.4gig of files...

Jools

Shane wrote:get rained on, sunburned, slip in the mud, fall in the river, get eaten by flys, mosquitos and insects unknown, and walk into sunken logs and submersed thorn bushes.

While rain, sun, slips and submersed entanglements appear to be a common afflication, the insect life had a distinct taste in Scotsmen... UGLY pics soon.

Jools

Jools wrote:

Dave Rinaldo wrote:It will be a presentation at CSG and All Aquarium Catfish Convention 2006

Will it?

Jools

I was only hoping!

Welcome back!

the insect life had a distinct taste in Scotsmen

They have a distinct taste FOR Scotsmen. It must be that blue hue.
-Shane

Welcome back guys. Good to see you are all safe and sound. May I also add that the I am sure the "distinct taste for scotsmen" must come about from the fine quality of "grain" and "hops" the scottish body is so often accustomed too!

Rob

Thanks for the reply, Shane. I think there some folks out there that think you can just pick up and go on an adventure like this. I'm sure your response was minimal(no sense in bogging down the server with this stuff), but I can see (and I hope others can see) that this is no small undertaking. I'm so happy for the 3 of you! It appears all of the planning paid off in a major way.
Amanda

Just an apology (mainly to my two fellow travel companions) that I've not got pictures and movies online yet. I'm back to work with a thump, jet lag has kicked in and there is the small matter of reacquainting myself with my wife.

So, hope to have material to Justin and Shane in the next 24hours as well as some of my own stuff online.

It will be worth the wait...

Jools

Can you 3 that went tell us which plecos you picked up. Also, what is a river that has a a species of Peckoltia and Hypancistrus in it. Is this possible

laurab5 wrote:Can you 3 that went tell us which pl*cos you picked up. Also, what is a river that has a a species of Peckoltia and Hypancistrus in it. Is this possible

Laurab5,

We'll post a list of species later. As to the other question, go buy a book. It's way off topic and I'm not answering it...

Jools

WhitePine wrote:I just got back from the airport and am quarantining fish. I had an awesome inspector at the Newark airport, ...

Hi..err...are you talking about a human inspector or a hypancistrus inspector? If it's the pleco you're talking about, are they hard to find now a days?