Re: artificial hatching

[henshawm@ruf.rice.edu (Mike Henshaw)]

>I believe that aquarists should do all they can to allow the parents to
>raise their fry themselves.  I remember reading somewhere that parental
>behaviour is in part learned not just instinct, in the future no-one may
>have the pleasure of watching a female apisto raise her young.

While I agree that it is best to allow the parents to raise the fry
themselves, I don't think that removing the parents will lead to a future
in which Apisto's don't know how to raise offspring.  I don't doubt that
parenting is learned to some extent (it is in many species of animals). 
What learned means however is that the fish have a set of instincts to
begin with and that they get better at parenting as they go.  I don't think
that it means that they must learn how to parent from their parents.  Maybe
I've missed your point, but I don't see how preventing a particular pair
from learning to be better parents will lead to the demise of parenting in
apistos.  Unparented offspring will still have the instincts for parenting
and they will still improve if allowed to.  The only way I could see such a
scenario occuring is if removing the parents allowed individuals with bad
parenting instincts to have more offspring  and reduce the percentage of
good parents out there.

Also, it seems to me (in my ignorance), that a significant percentage of
apisto's in the hobby are wild caught.  Such a steady influx of wild stock
should insure that even if it is true that tank spawned fish must learn to
parent, there will still be plenty of able teachers out there to maintain
the skills.
- ------------------------------------
Dept. of Ecology & Evol. Biology, MS-170
Rice University
135 Anderson Biology Lab
6100 Main
Houston, TX. 77005-1892

Ph: (713)527-4919
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e-mail: henshawm@ruf.rice.edu