PlanetCatfish.com

I saw them catch a "Banana catfish", which to me looked very similar to a Red Tailed Catfish - red tail, green with dark spots on the upper side, and off-white belly. Either way, the fish must have been about 75cm/2.5ft long, and about 20cm/8" wide.

Video here:
http://www.bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=7566351303&

The aquarium at the camp also have some Loricariidae - some Loricariinae and a large pleco of some sort.

Video here: http://www.bebo.com/FlashBox.jsp?FlashBoxId=7566351303&


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Mats

I shipped in 25 of of some small(~2") Candiru when I had a fish shop and long before they were made illegal in the US. They are creepy in the video and they were creepy in an aquarium doing nothing but trying hide. They all starved to death.

apistomaster wrote:They all starved to death.

Probably because they are obligate parasites, so if you don't have some large fish for them to suck blood off, they will starve to death pretty soon. Although I'm not entirely sure the stories about them are actually true.

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Mats

MatsP wrote: Although I'm not entirely sure the stories about them are actually true.
Mats

I, for one, have no intention of ever trying to find out!

I for one don't like documentaries like these

there are tons of them and they all are the same: it's 1 big fat egotrip revolving around "the dude" presenting the show
and every single one of those documentaries follow the same "guidelines"

-the presentator is the most important thing on the show, not the animals

-animals are treated very badly, handled way too much, dragged out of the water, while at the same time the guy who's mug keeps on being filmed up close keeps on bawling about "respect"... like "Look! if I ram my fist up this stingray's arse, he's gonna be really pissed off!" that kind of approach.

-the only animals featuring such shows have to be big, dangerous or downright revolting

-the camerawork has to be as bad as they can possibly get away with, short of dropping the thing

-there is NO serious info fiven about the animals featuring the show, save from a load of bad stuff, to "urban legends" to downright lies.

-the ugly mugs are usually up close and too personal. I'm not interested about some Joe Sixpack's nostril hair or bad acne, but it's all the rage these days

-quietly explaining things is not done. it has to be whispered in a coarse rasping pant too close to the mike or shouted. language is laced by such epithomes as "Whoa! Awesome" and more of that. these testosterone-raging Neanderthals cannot communicate in any way resembling normal human conduct. the average IQ of these geezers equals roomtemperature in centigrade celcius, not fahrenheit......

-the makers of these programs must assume collectively that we have the IQ of a jellyfish, no offense meant to any coelentherates. having to watch these shows is an insult to my intelligence per se.




there's very few persons making REAL documentaries and most of them are very old like Sir David Attenborough who sadly has vertually NO followers who take care to have the same approach.
next to him a handful of French and Spanish nature experts and that's about it.

there must be a million Australians, Americans and others around who think that strutting in front of the camera, yabbering nonsense at me on too many commercial channels, stamping about in the wild, dragging all kinds of sad animals right out of their natural habitat is THE grammy award approach of making documentaries.
I'll bet being a snake or big fish or crocodile or something is no fun. every 15 minutes another jerk in shorts and army boots will jump right on top of you and goes for the hands-on approach.

frankly I'm thoroughly disgusted by these morons.
being forced to watch stuff like this is akin to having your eyes gauged out with a blunt spoon.

Sidguppy,

I do agree with your sentiments when it comes to many nature documentaries - particularly the ones in the style of Steve Whatshisname.

In this case, they are genuine researchers (Phil Willink being the "fish expert") that do the finding of animals. Yes, they may exaggerate the danger at times - it is TV after all. But they are not all big, dangerous animals. They showed a net full of smallish fish, none of which were particularly special, just small characins and cichlids.

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Mats

Quality rant Mr Guppy

I completely agree, but you forgot to mention my biggest pet-hate: the massive reliance on CGI in these programs. Totally pointless in all but a very, very few occasions!

Yes, they may exaggerate the danger at times - it is TV after all

so?

since when is that an excuse to skip the facts and tell bogus?
real honest provable facts were plenty good enough for Attenborough, Cousteau and others.

the fact that "it's TV" shouldn't be any excuse to spin 'facts' around. that's the whole problem and the root of it.
the fact that some people use "it's TV" as an alibi to sell lies

there still is a fair distinction between real journalism real documentary, science and on the other end "entertainment" and propaganda.

selling lies used to be wrong, still is wrong and will be wrong until hell freezes over.
the philosophy that media should be "entertaining" will be our undoing.
we don't get journalism anymore, we get "entertainment" poured down our minds until the big honcho's brainwashed us so much that we resemble the "sheeple" more than humanity
I see man's downfall nowhere better than in the mainstream mass media.

I completely agree, and I was being sarcastic when I said "It's TV after all" - they should not exaggerate the dangers, and they should not lie in other ways either. I still think, compared to other shows on TV, this is a pretty good one [the best bits of wildlife TV I've seen this year].

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Mats

racoll wrote:you forgot to mention my biggest pet-hate: the massive reliance on CGI in these programs. Totally pointless in all but a very, very few occasions!

this has also been my biggest pet-hate for nature programmes over the past 10 years or so, to the extent that I watch a lot fewer than I used to (I missed this one!)

Carp37 wrote:this has also been my biggest pet-hate for nature programmes over the past 10 years or so, to the extent that I watch a lot fewer than I used to (I missed this one!)

There is no apparent CGI in the programme of the subject here. I agree, that CGI is not necessary in most nature films.

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Mats

There is no apparent CGI in the programme of the subject here. I agree, that CGI is not necessary in most nature films.

Yes I think the complaints are aimed at nature programs in general rather than this one.

Didn't see it unfortunately. Sometimes they repeat these things on a Sunday.

racoll wrote:Yes I think the complaints are aimed at nature programs in general rather than this one.

I fully understand the complaint, and I was just assuring you that it wasn't the case in this programme.

Didn't see it unfortunately. Sometimes they repeat these things on a Sunday.

Here's the schedule: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00cvz5x/comingup/
Summary:
Episode one is re-run at 01:40 (20 to two in the night!) on BBC 2 on the 11th [not much in the way of fishy stuff in the first episode, unfortunately]
Episode two is currently on iPlayer. No schedule showing for a re-run.
Episode three is on BBC1 at 8 pm next wednesday.

I expect episode 2 to be on BBC2 at some late night at some later time too.

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Mats

probably a stupid question, but what is/does CGI?

Bas Pels wrote:probably a stupid question, but what is/does CGI?

Computer Graphics I???? Stuff that is done after the scene in a computer, like they make Batman fly in films and such.

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Mats

CGI = Computer Generated Imagery

like Jurassic Parc and Walking with Dinosaurs, stuff like that.

thus fraud

No, obviously I don't think any documentary should use CGI

CGI makes sense for illustrative purposes. Suppose one wanted to show movement of tectonic plates over million of years.

yup

same for making lifelike T-rexes.

kinda hard to find them these days.

but for animals that're still around i like the real thing better than the CGI

Go sid, go sid, rant away, I am now happy, sid has had a rant, and I totally agree with you sid, the tv shows of which you speak are complete and utter rubbish, these presenters are asses.
The exceptions are:-
Nick baker
and that is about all I can think of. CGI is a nonsense, I saw one the other day with CGI when real animals could have easily been filmed.

No one will ever beat Sir David but nick baker really is worth a watch.
As for this particular show it really is one of the better ones. The amazon abyss program was so full of sh*t it almost hurt but the pictures were good, when they could draw themselves away from the presenters.

That nigel marvin or wharever his name is did a few good ones too, not the CGI ones but the real ones. The one about piranhas was great.
People, by that I mean the majority of brain dead viewers, will just switch it off if it isn't 'extreme' dim witted sh*t for brains that they are.

Matt

I like Nick

he's a really nice friendly down to earth kinda fellow.

and he's also one of the few filmmakers wich docu's I enjoy.
he's got this series on really weird critters and I've seen it. it's a nice series.

sid,
I tend to agree. A quality rant, indeed! There has been only one show of sincere quality. I believe it was called "Pantanal", maybe on Discovery HD in the US. There was a man, who wasn't famous doing the voice over. Fish and otters were the stars of the show. They intended to show the life cycle of the Pantanal from one wet season to the next, via the fish and otters. The splash tetras breeding were great. In fact, clips from this show are still used in other shows. I groan every time I see a clip. It's usually of the otters munching on some Pim or other. During the dry season segment, they didn't spare our emotions. They showed many species gasping for air and then dead. They had a nice segment showing photos of the undescribed Loricariids they photographed during the dry season, dead.
Amanda

Cool,
I havn't seen that I shall look out for it.

Matt