In Search of the Licorice Gourami, by Michael Lo

ARTICLE INFORMATION:
Author: Michael Lo
Title: In Search of the Licorice Gourami
Summary: Michael went looking for licorice gouramis. He was unsuccessful but caught many other fish, including long-nosed loaches, Channa bankanensis, and spiny eels.
Contact for editing purposes:
email: Michael, at: rasbora2004@yahoo.com
Date first published: April 2003
Publication: For more photos and information about fish and plants in Sarawak, see Michael's website: http://www.ibanorum.netfirms.com
Reprinted from Aquarticles:
Translated into Italian and published on August 30, 2007 at: www.vergari.com/acquariofilia/biotopo15b_asia.asp

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Borneo Field Trip Diaries - Part II
In Search of the Licorice Gourami

by Michael Lo
of Sarawak, Malaysia
From his website: http://www.ibanorum.netfirms.com
Aquarticles

Collection period: 3rd April - 17th April 2004

Due to a lack of reference books I have limited knowledge of the wild fish of Sarawak. The Internet has become my most important tool for finding information.

One day I found a Japanese web site that published a story and photos of fish collected during a field trip to Sarawak. I could recognise one of the photos as being somewhere near Lundu. The fish caught were licorice gouramis, Parosphromenus allani.

On April 3rd, a fine Saturday morning, I began my journey to search for this beautiful fish. I was driving alone, in the direction of Lundu. About 10 a.m., I turned left onto a small road to search for other fish. (This was about half an hour's driving distance from the river where the Japanese found the licorice gourami). There, I came across a tea-coloured stream. At first I did not find anything interesting and decided to continue my journey. But I pushed my net once more into the leaf litter and caught two long-nosed loaches (Acanthopsis choirorhynchus) for the first time!

This is the tea coloured stream where I found the long-nosed loach.

CLICK ON THUMBNAILS FOR ENLARGEMENTS, THEN GO "BACK."

Long-nosed loach, Acanthopsis choirorhynchus

It was almost noon and I continued my journey to Lundu. When I saw the river described by that Japanese on his website, I stopped my car near a bridge. The river is a bit black coloured and I couldn't find licorice gourami near the bridge. I moved to the bush and I found a big swamp.....the floor was covered by leaf litter and cryptocoryne plants! I found out later that they were Cryptocoryne cordata variant zonata!

There were a lot of small pools inside the swamp. I caught Channa bankanensis for the first time and some Mystus species of catfish. There were many species of fish over there ....but after searching for more than an hour I still failed to find any licorice gouramis.

My first Channa bankanensis. After taking the photo I let it go. I couldn't take back all the fish I found.

I left that swamp and headed to the Sempadi area to look for a new collection point. I found a few blackwater streams and caught some fish which I had collected before: Puntius hexazone, Rasbora einthoveni, Rasbora kalochroma, Rasbora pauciperforata, Puntius binotatus and a giant-sized pikehead (Luciocephalus pulcher). I saw combtail gouramis (Belontia hasselti) for the first time but failed to catch them as the water was too deep.

Spiny eel, a very common fish in Sarawak

A freshwater shrimp.

I saw Belontia hasselti in this area!

I was not successful in my hunt for the licorice gourami but I had found many other fish.