PlanetCatfish.com

Hi all,

I will be out of town from 31 May–6 June, fishing in western Aceh province, Sumatra. The lousy part is that I will be away from my daughter for a week. The only redeeming part is that I'm being paid to go fishing (this trip is part of an environmental impact assessment).

Good luck! Look forward to some pics?

Jools

EIA means dam or other large building project, I suspect...

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Mats

Nope, the rivers there are too small for any hydroelectric project to be viable.

Sounds good that it's not another big dam! ;)

Have as much fun as can possibly be had from "working", and I too look forward to some pictures.

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Mats

Have fun HH. Wish I was going with you.
-Shane

Well, I'm back for my trip. As soon as I can catch up with the stuff that has accumulated in my absence, I will post pictures here. That's right, in this forum. Because the work was conducted as part of an EIA, I do not have permission to freely distribute information from this EIA (photos, data). I guess it would be safe enough to post them here instead. I am sorry that I can't share the info with everyone, but at least I can share it with some of you.

I only managed to catch one catfish the whole trip. We encountered two catfishes, but one was purchased off a fisherman.
In any case, here's the catfish I caught. It's definitely a new species, but I don't know what genus to place it in (although I am leaning towards Olyra, which would make it way out of its known distribution).

I must say the crustaceans we encountered were more interesting than the catfish.

Very interesting bagrid HH. Enough unique characteristics to put it in its own genus?
-Shane

The first of the crayfish-like [sorry, not very good with classification on these things] looks like it's sort of like a fiddler crab in that it has one large and one small claw - or is it's just an old damage.

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Mats

What was the catfish purchased from the fisherman?

Birger

That specimen is not with me now, so I'm not 100% sure if it was or Mystus alasensis.

In any case, I have just confirmed with Carl Ferraris that the catfish in the photograph is an Olyra.

The shrimp asymmetry is natural, as all male Macrobrachium will have one enlarged claw (for displaying to females and threat displays/fights with other males).

I was based in the town of Meulaboh for half the time I was there. This was at “ground zero” of the 2004 tsunami (because it was the nearest inhabited place to the epicenter of the earthquake), which killed about one-third of the population there. It was sobering to drive through the old town center, which was leveled by the tsunami and not rebuilt (the town center was moved very slightly further inland to its present location).

Silurus wrote:I only managed to catch one catfish the whole trip. We encountered two catfishes, but one was purchased off a fisherman.
In any case, here's the catfish I caught. It's definitely a new species, but I don't know what genus to place it in (although I am leaning towards Olyra, which would make it way out of its known distribution).

More than four years later, this catfish is finally getting a name (as a new genus and species). The description has been submitted to the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and should be published in the next issue (I think scheduled for April/May 2015) if it is accepted fast enough.

I do like the adding of info to old threads - try doing that on Facebook! Is that not relatively quick? I think if one considers all date of material collection and all corresponding date of descriptions averaged? Good to tick another one off?

Anyway, may I add the image as Olyra sp. 1 for now?

Cheers,

Jools

Sure, although it would be more accurate to add that as Bagridae sp. 1 (the fish will be named [NAME REDACTED], BTW). I actually have a number of pics of that one fish.

Description should be published (hopefully) within the next two months. I have corrected page proofs if anyone wants a sneak peek.

Yes please!

Jools

Done

I'm wondering whether or not this thread should be moved to the Traveller's Notebook forum instead. Your thoughts, Jools?

Fine by me if you're OK with the new name going out into the wild?

Jools

I missed the offer at the time but would still like a sneak peak if possible?

[Moderator's note] This thread was originally posted in the moderator's forum, but it is now moved to the Traveller's Note Book forum since it contains information that may be of interest to a wider audience. The name of the new taxon has been redacted since it is not yet formally published and the thread is now available to a wider audience.

Silurus wrote:Description should be published (hopefully) within the next two months. I have corrected page proofs if anyone wants a sneak peek.

Is a copy possible HH?

Good idea to move this out. And I am looking to officially rename the "Olyra".

Jools

The description is finally published: http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... hp?t=42360