Golden Pheasant Parrot
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Golden pheasant ( Callopanchax occidentalis ), male |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Callopanchax occidentalis | ||||||||||||
| ( Clausen , 1966) |
The golden pheasant ( Callopanchax occidentalis , Latin occidentalis - western, referring to the occurrence west of the Dahomey Gap ) is a West African representative of the killifish . The colorful animals are well-known aquarium fish , but due to their demands (see reproduction ) and short life expectancy, they are rarely kept. They were introduced to Germany in 1911. The name offers potential for confusion with the ornamental males of the genus Aphyosemion , as their sub-genus they were previously classified.
Occurrence
The species occurs in West Africa in the area of Sierra Leone and western Liberia and populates there mainly small and very small pools of water and swamps, which can also dry out seasonally.
features
The body shape is stretched club-shaped with an upper mouth. In captivity, the males reach a total length of up to eight centimeters, while the females remain slightly smaller. The basic color changes from a metallic orange on the back to a metallic blue on the belly side, with the scales correspondingly red to blue. The dorsal and anal fins are band-shaped, the caudal fin spatulate. All fins have red and bluish-white bands. The males in particular are very colorful, while the females are much less contrasting.
Way of life
The animals live individually or in loose groups in herbaceous shallow water areas, where they feed on smaller invertebrates and insects that have fallen into the water. The intraspecific aggressiveness is particularly pronounced in the males.
Reproduction
The golden pheasant fish belongs to the seasonal fish . In order to adapt to the habitats that regularly dry out, the eggs are laid in the muddy ground where they go through a resting phase during the dry phase. If the water is replenished in the rainy season , the fry hatch after a short time and become sexually mature after eight to ten weeks.
swell
literature
- Rüdiger Riehl , Hans A. Baensch : Aquarien Atlas, Volume 1 , 15th edition, Mergus Verlag, Melle 2007, ISBN 978-3-88244-227-4
- Lothar Seegers: Killifische - egg-laying tooth carps in the aquarium , Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 978-3-80017-055-5
Individual evidence
- ^ Werner Neumann: Callopanchax occidentalis. In: Claus Schaefer, Torsten Schröer (Hrsg.): The large lexicon of aquaristics. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8001-7497-9 , p. 191.
Web links
- FishBase : Callopanchax occidentalis
- Callopanchax occidentalis inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: Lalèyè, P., 2006. Retrieved January 11, 2014.