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| GO WEST !!! |
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| (collection period: June - July 2004) |
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| If my friend, Zhou did not show me the labyrinth fish website, I wouldn't know there is an undescribed betta species called Betta sp. "Sematan". |
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| I am not so sure the most western part of Sarawak got any betta species or not. I have been collecting fish twice in Sematan area but I did not find any betta fish. No matter how, I must go west again to find this so called Betta sp. "Sematan". |
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| June 7th, 2004.My cousin and I started our fishing trip again. Before we reached the Lundu ferry point, we went to look for fish in the drain of oil palm plantation. We did not find anything interesting. Then, we moved forward to Sematan area. We found some swamps and small rivers which looks like the biotope of the wild betta but we still could not find the wild betta. Almost giving up hope, I found a strange looking rasbora species....and found out later its another variant of Sundadanio axelrodi. I also found another color variant of bumblebee goby. (Brachygobius doriae) Most of the rivers in Sematan are quite short and hence seeing different species of goby is very common. (30% of the rivers there are brackish water) |
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Blyxa species. |
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Sundadanio axelrodi !!! |
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Strange coloration of bumblebee goby. |
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Beautiful sea view from Sematan town. |
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| Since we could not find any betta in the swampy area, we headed to some unexplored areas. Lucky me, I found a sandy road built by either logging company or oil palm plantation company. Not many tall trees in that area....felt like exploring the savanna of Africa. |
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| When I saw the blackwater stream, my heart was pumping hard because this could be the homeland of wild betta. We went down to the stream, found Puntius hexazona, Rasborakalochroma and Rasbora pauciperforata. We moved into the deeper part of that area. There is no human settlement along the road in that remote area.....as seem we're in the no man land. At last we found a beautiful swamp, but still could not find the betta. We turned back home when the sky is getting dark. |
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A blackwater swamp in Sematan. |
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| June 18,2004. Today we're coming back to Sematan to collect Sundadanio axelrodi. I was not expecting to find any bettas. I thought the infomation which I found from the net could be inaccurate. It was not easy to collect those Sundadanio axelrodi as they are easily dead if we let them expose too much out of water surface! |
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| When we almost done our collection, I saw a betta fish looking at me , about 1 meter away. Alamak!! That is the betta I'm looking for! I quickly push my net into the water but failed to catch it. I believed it's hiding under those leaves litter so I tried a few times to push my net into the water and ....gotcha! I finally caught a beautiful betta species which I never seen before. I showed it to my cousin and he also said he never seen this betta before. |
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| Since we caught all the fish we wanted, we rushed back to our home. The following day, I discovered that betta I caught is a female. |
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collecting fish is always fun!!! |
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Betta sp. "sematan". From this coloration, you can see that she is frightening !!! |
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The following day, she is showing her natural color !!! |
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She is lonely inside this community tank. I must find her a "husband"!! |
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