NWAAS April: Extraordinary New Rainbowfish from Papua

Discussion in 'Clubs/Groups From Around Our Region' started by mewickham, Mar 26, 2014.

  1. mewickham

    mewickham Plankton

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    Extraordinary New Rainbowfish From Papua

    Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) is a Darwin's paradise with almost every watershed separated for a long enough time to produce unique species of rainbowfish. After four trips to Papua we've managed to find 9 or 10 brand new species of 'bows. Some were quite easy to find as they were gifted to us by our missionary pilot friend. Others involved multi day trips by outrigger over the ocean and over eight hours up winding rivers to reach our collecting destination. Finally to get our prizes out and rendezvous with our boat captain we had to slog over five hours thru a pathless jungle. You be the judge to see if the leeches, thorns, mosquitoes and other punishment of the jungle were worth the effort to bring out these wonderful rainbowfish! This talk will primarily deal with our fourth trip to Papua plus the capture and breeding of the amazing Wapoga Red Laser rainbowfish.

    Bio for Gary Lange

    Gary has been keeping fish since he was 10 and has been associated with the organized hobby for the last 32 years. He is a member of the Missouri Aquarium Society (MASI) and has held various positions in the club. He is a grand master breeder in MASI, and has won "Best Fish In Show" on four different occasions, twice with rainbowfish.

    In the fall of 1987, he started the Rainbowfish Study Group of North America (RSG). He got in fish photography mainly because there weren't many quality pictures of rainbowfish. He has had his photos published in FAMA, TFH and AFM and has published several articles for the Aquarium Fish Magazine and TFH.

    In 2002, he was the first to import eight new rainbowfish into North America from the world explorer, Heiko Bleher, including the Millennium rainbow, the Zigzag and the dwarf parva rainbowfish. In 2003 he made his second trip to Australia and did some more collecting while there. In 2005 he took the rainbowfish collectors dream trip – collecting in West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya), the western portion of New Guinea. He made another trip back in 2008, recollecting Melanotaenia praecox. A third trip was made in 2010 and a fourth completed in August of 2012. He brought back fish that have never been seen in the hobby including Chilatherina alleni, both color varieties. With these trips he’s collected and brought back 9-10 different new species of rainbowfish and is currently working on their scientific articles. He is currently running over 90 tanks and keeping over 65 species and locations of rainbowfish and blue-eyes.
     
  2. mewickham

    mewickham Plankton

    Dinner with Gary Lange
    Since we have a guest speaker this month, we will be meeting up at Hibachi Grill Supreme Buffet before the meeting (5:00 PM) to buy him dinner. Everyone is welcome to join us and we hope that you will! The restaurant is a newer and very large Chinese/American buffet (largest in the area). The buffet also includes good sushi and a Mongolian-style grill where you can pick your raw ingredients for cooking. You will be responsible for your own meal check, which is around $10 for buffet (less for kids), plus drink.

    The restaurant address is listed below, but for those familiar with the area, the restaurant is located right in front of Walmart #1 on Walnut St. (Rt. 12) in Rogers. Basically, it's at the corner of Walnut and 21st Streets.


    Restaurant location:
    Hibachi Grill Supreme Buffet
    102 South 21st Street
    Rogers, AR 72758-1120
    (479) 636-8888



    If you plan to attend the dinner, please post a note here as an RSVP. You do not need it to attend, but by letting us see the group size in advance, we can be sure they hold enough tables to group us all together.
     

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