Mayland book: quick survey

[Randy or Deb Carey <carey@spacestar.net>]

Mike Evans, who is offering the new Mayland/Bork book on dwarf cichlids, also belongs to the Minnesota Aquarium Society.  We just had our meeting tonight and he was there with the new Mayland book.  I assume there's a lot of curiosity, so I'll give a quick survey of the book.

**** Opening section:

* The Habitats of the S. Am. Dwarf Cichlids  (text, two double-paged maps).
* Short discussion of finnage and of patterns of color & markings.
* other misc. like synonymns and a summary of Kullander's diagnosis of Apistos.

***** Species:

 * 74 Apisto species.  Most of the common ones plus newer/rarer ones like aequipinnis, amoena, cruzi, diplotaenia, guttata, juruensis, moae, parva, paucisquamis, payaminonis, piauiensis, pleurotaenia, regani, ritensis, rondoni, roraimae, rupununi, staecki, sweglesi, taeniata, (2 subspecies of
trifasciata), uaupesi, urteagai, and the yet-described species:
"Rio Negro," "Brietbindedn," "Blutkehle," Gelbwangen," "Sunset," "Orangesaum," "Paraguay...I, II, III," "P;eixoto-Azevedo," "Rio-Caura," "Rotpunkt," "Smaragd," "Tucurui," "Vierstreifen," "Weibsaum."

The Dicrossus genus list filamentosus, maculatus, sp. "Dopplepunkt," and sp. "Dreipunkt."

**** Listing per Species:

The book has a look and feel like Linke/Staeck, but each species has a list of items which are discussed.  The items are:
* meaning of the specific name
* first description
* synonyms
* distribution
* habitat
* sexual dimorphism and coloration
* Total length
* maintenance in the aquarium and reproduction
* remarks

Not all of these are listed per species, but this suggests that the info which is listed is known.

On average, the book has about 1 color photo per page.  A species takes up about 2 pages for photo(s) and text.

**** Bonus!!!

The biggest treat is the blue insets listing the water parametersfor a particular location (e.g., "Lago Tarapoto," or "Rio Apeu").  I counted 22 such reports in the Apisto section. These listing include date/time of readings, water movement, depth, water color, vegetation, surface temp, pH,
conductivity, KH, total hardness, Sodium, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, ...  (What more info coiuld you possibly use?)  These biotope descriptions seem to be tied to a distribution of one of the fishes in the nearby text, but the connection is seldom made salient.

By the way, I find such information of great value not just for my keeping of Apistos, but of other small S. Am. fishes (tetras in particular).

* Another big bonus is the distribution maps of similar species.  About three similar species are keyed with different shapes and plotted on a map of S. Am. rivers.  These appear throughout the book, but apparently near the text of one of the species.

For example, the distributions of agassizii, pulchra, and gephyra are plotted on a map along the text for agassizii.  The distributions of pertensis, iniridae, and meinkeni are plotted on a map next to discussion of iniridae.  That's the pattern.

*Bibliography: 8 columns of articles are listed.  I saw one dating as early as 1903

* * * * * * * * *
SUMMARY:

The book is a"must have" for us Apisto keepers.  I can't vouch for the accuracy of text content (yet).  It lists text and photos of new species, water parameters, and comparative distribution maps.

Unless someone demonstrates inaccuracies, this book will probably replace Linke/Staeck as my number one source.  (Linke/Staeck will still be a strong number two.)  I guess I expect Romer's book to have more and better text (simply because of Romer' reputation), but I don't expect the Mayland/Bork book
to be lost in its shadow.

- --Randy Carey

http://www.spacestar.net/users/carey/fishroom