The Cross river in Western Africa is a legendary river. The course of the river starts in Cameroon, the lower part flows through Nigeria. The river is famous for its high degree of endemic species; „endemic“ means that the species occurs only there and nowhere else. Among the endemic species are for example Tetraodon pustulatus and Ctenopoma nebulosum. Another endemic species is Polypterus teugelsi which has been described scientifically only in 2004. Currently it is very difficult to obtain fish from the Cross river, so the species is extremely rare in the trade and expensive.
Now the breeders in Indonesia have managed to breed Polypterus teugelsi successfully. Thus every enthusiast who is interested is enabled to keep the fish. One should, however, keep in mind that the species attains a length of at least 40 cm. They are not small fish at all, despite how charming the youngsters may look. One very special feature in the young P. teugelsi is the fact that they have their dorsal finlets almost always spread.
For our customers: the fish have code 165601 on our stocklist. Please note that we exclusively supply the wholesale trade.
Text & photos: Frank Schäfer
