ARK - Arizona Rivulin Keepers

The Scheel Letters, No. 51

In this issue of the Killie Letters I should like to inform you on the many different sorts of crossings that I prepared and have studied since 1957, although much of the information on these crossings has already been given in previous issues of these letters. Also I should like to inform you on the background on which the crossings were prepared as some of the findings that were disclosed from the crossings might be useful in the systematics and the taxonomy of Rivulins and also in the general keeping and breeding of these fishes.

For several reasons that should not be discussed here, this rather comprehensive work could not be delivered to you as a print containing the many photos of the species used for these crossings and of the male hybrids. None of the information given to you in this issue of Killie Letters is "restricted" in any way and for this reason all receivers of these letters are free to use the information for their own publications on Cyprinodonts. If you consider the information herein given as important to zoologists or aquarists, you are free to prepare manifoldings by printing or duplicating. If for such work pictures are needed I will be glad to supply you with the black-white photos that you want. I planned to publish up to 85 such photos to improve the text.

I have prepared this issue of Killie Letters in such a way that it can be used independently of the preceding eight or nine issues of these letters, as I have no spare copies of these letters. I am, however, informed that the AKA (American Killifish Association) will print the Killie Letters 1-8 this year and that they will distribute the copies to their members.

In private correspondence on Old World Rivulins, in crossing reports, in notes on various species etc. it is useful to have codes for each species. The use of codes makes all sorts of writing, marking etc. much easier. For West African Rivulins I have worked out the following codes. These codes are built up from the three first letters of the species name in zoological taxonomy, if such a code covers one form only. Codes for forms that have names such as "rubrofascium", "rubroreticulatus" or "rubrostictum" become these codes: RUF, RUR, RUS.

In the following review of the codes that I use, I have used codes composed by capital letters for "apparently good species" only, whereas names that are ill-defined or probably synonyms are written in ordinary letters. If the particular species has been used in the crossings, the code is underlined, and in those cases that I have seen preserved or live individuals of a form that have not been used in crossings, the underlining of the code is broken.

For ill-defined names and probable synonyms, I refer to the species which probably comes closest: mat = (FAS), indicating that "mat" is a close relative of FAS, or bit = BIV? indicating that "bit" probably is a synonym for BIV, or inf = SEX saying that "inf" is found to be a synonym for SEX.