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| This issue of Cichlid News sees an interesting mix of contributions from our authors. At our request, Dr. Anton Lamboj writes about one of his favorite West African cichlids, Limbochromis robertsi, newly and thankfully re-introduced to the hobby. Jennifer Reynolds shares her experiences doing field work in Lake Tanganyika as part of the scientific investigative group of Dr. Sigal Balshine, Associate Professor of Psychology at McMaster University, who are studying social behaviors and their neurochemical underpinnings in Neolamprologus pulcher, both in the lab and in nature. Oliver Lucanus introduces us to an apparently new and undescribed Retroculus species from Brazil. It is beautiful and all the more tantalizing since its export out of Brazil now is unlikely. Dr. Paul Loiselle shares his experiences with the smallest of Cameroon’s Lake Barombi Mbo’s endemic cichlids. From the Brichard camp, Mireille and Jacky Schreyen discuss the recent environmental erosion unfortunately being currently experienced by Lake Tanganyika. We happily reinstate the popular ‘My Favorite 6 Cichlids’ with a contribution from Pam Chin, known by many of you from her ACA escapades, but also as a prolific cichlid breeder and namesake of the question and answer feature ‘Ask Pam’ on the internet—you may be surprised what she chooses. Finally, Laif DeMason reviews the recently published book Cichlids of Africa Vol. 1: Haplochromines by Greg Steeves, Dave Hansen, and Anton Lamboj, frequent and recent contributors to these pages. We wrap up with our usual: “What’s New from Around the World.” It’s a great issue! Enjoy!
I’d also like to take this opportunity to amplify what Laif has to say in the prelude to his ‘What’s New’ in this issue. In this day of internet availability, information… both good and bad… is instantly at our fingertips. Some of it good…some of it not so good. There are a few reputable sites whose administrators are longtime cichlidophiles who can sort the accurate from the inaccurate; the wheat from the chaff….Juan Miguel Artigas-Azas’s excellent Cichlidroom Companion site comes instantly to mind. Here at Cichlid News we like to think we similarly attract and present only the best, most up-to-date information about cichlids. Under it all, your editors are longtime hobbyists too. There are many of us ‘longtimers’ even ‘lifers’ out there who have compiled, as Laif says, a vast topical reservoir of information on their own particular specialties. We hope you will take the time to write about your experiences as a way of giving back to the hobby we all love, sharing what you have learned by experience in some form or another. Please get the information out there to other hobbyists: consider publishing in your local or specialty club publication, or in one or other of the commercial hobby magazines. And when you write that article…we hope you will also consider Cichlid News as the vehicle for sharing your experiences. We all stand on the shoulders of those (hobbyists) who have come before us… and then told us about what they learned. |
Wayne S. Leibel, Editor  |
