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| In Search for Licorice Gourami |
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| (collection period: 3rd April - 17th April'04) |
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| Due to lack of reference books, I have limited knowledge on the wild fish of Sarawak. Therefore, internet become my important tool to get the information. One day, I found out a Japanese web site published the story and photos of the fish collected by that web master during his field trip to Sarawak. I could recognize one of the photos he took, somewhere near Lundu. The fish which he caught is a beautiful Licorice gourami , probably it is Parosphromenus allani. |
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| On Arpil 3rd, a beautiful Saturday morning, I began my journey to search for this beautiful fish. I was driving alone, on the direction to Lundu. About 10am, I turned left to a small road to search for other fish. That area is about half an hour driving distance from the river where the Japanese found the Licorice gourami) There, I found a tea colored stream. At first, I did not find anything interesting and decided to continue my journey. I push my net to the leave litter and caught two long nosed loaches (Acanthopsis choirorhynchus) for the first time! |
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| It's almost noon, I continued my journey to Lundu. When I saw the river described by that Japanese in his web,I stopped my car near a bridge. The river is a bit black colored and I couldn't find licorice gourami near the bridge. I moved to the bush and I found a big swamp.....the floor is covered by the leave litter and the cryptocoryne plant! I found out later that is Cryptocoryne cordata variant zonata! There are a lot of small pools inside the swamp. I caught the Channa bankanensis for the first time and some mystus species of catfish. There were too many species of fish over there ....but searching for more than an hour I still failed to find any licorice gourami. I left that swamp after failing to find the gourami. I headed to Sempadi area to find new collection point. I found a few blackwater streams and found some fish which I collected before: Puntius hexazone, Rasbora einthoveni, Rasbora kalochroma, Rasbora pauciperforata, Puntius binotatus and giant sized pikehead. (Luciocephalus pulcher) I saw the combtail gourami (Belontia hasselti) for the first time but failed to catch it as the water is too deep. |
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This is the tea colored stream where I found long nosed loach. Picture below is the long nosed loach. |
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A spiny eel, very common fish in Sarawak. |
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A freshwater shrimp. |
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My first Channa bankanensis. After taking the photo, I let it go. I can't take back all the fish I found. |
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I saw Belontia hasselti in the nearby area of this stream! |
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