Interesting Sites

I ran across this site the other day; http://swisstropicals.com/, and was very impressed by Dr. Stephan Tanner's fish list. He has some great varieties for sale, things you really don't stumble upon every day. One of my favorites is the Tippecanoe Darter, a small North American fish native to areas from Pennsylvania down to Tennessee. This is not a fish often found for sale. Here in Pennsylvania it's endangered, so no scooping them out of local waters is allowed. Same thing goes in Indiana, I believe. In Ohio you need to submit a written request to the chief of the division of wildlife. Dr. Tanner seems like a responsible adult, so I'll assume he followed the regulations. I would think that the darters would be a good fit for aquariums. I think I'll do a little research and look into keeping some in the near future.

Swiss Tropicals also has a nice variety of odd loaches and other fish you don't hear about every day. I particularly like Acanthocobitis zonalternans. It's a lovely little loach. I think I'll write to Dr. Tanner to see if he'll be attending the GPASI Spring Auction here in Pittsburgh. I'd like to see some of his fish in person. The auction is on April 27th, if you're interested.

Here's a link to the GPASI February Newsletter: http://gpasi.org/feb08fin.pdf , lots of info in there about upcoming events and a nice article about the Rainbow Shiner.