Nothing very exciting happening at Grant Towers at the
moment, unless of course you think getting 2 Australian lungfish Neoceratodus forsteri and having 6 Helicops angulatus born is cool?
What can I say? Everyone has their “list” the animals they
want to see, work with or keep, mine is long and I've been very lucky to have
seen, worked with or kept a lot of them. From Komodo dragons, humming birds and giant
tortoises to octopus, ants and giraffes.
Still waiting on a giant salamander but I suppose you can’t
just get all your dreams too early, can you?
I remember seeing an Aussie lungfish at ZSL London Zoo Aquarium at
least 25 years ago, and have wanted one ever since. Years later, now having a
computer and finding out with some surprise that there was more on the Internet
than just smut I started a Google search to see if I could get one.
One company had them for sale but not surprisingly they were
in Australia and would only sell them in groups of fives. I did offer to pay
the freight etc in full but only buy 2 but this wasn’t allowed.
A grumpy frustrated Sebby went back to his old ways on the Internet….
Many years passed and I heard that someone was going to
import some so I asked if it was possible to add an extra 2 to the group for
myself, imagine my joy when this was agreed!
And soon li’l Sebby and Sebrina made their way to their new
home at The Towers.
For such a slow moving fish they do have a very strong
reaction if spooked, they are good at taking food from tweezers or fingers if
offered slowly but will swim wildly if you move too quickly.
They feed on a large range of foods, i'm offering pelleted foods, shrimp, earthworm and surprisingly peas and cut up fruit, all normally taken well.
The Helicops were
not too much of a surprise as id seen what I took to be courtship behavior where the smaller male appears to “stick” to the female. Swimming along beside
her with his chin resting against her body, it reminded me of a remora soo much
so I caught the male out to see if there was any rougher scales or anything
else that may help him keep a hold!
Helicops angulatus courtship behavior, in this clip you can see the male trying to stay with the female. (sorry for the poor quality).
I had found 2 eggs in the water which I was surprised at as I
thought they were live bearing. I did try and
incubate them but not surprisingly they collapsed very soon after.
The juveniles were separated into a small plastic tank,
where they remained mainly aquatic and sloughed a week later.
Helicops angulatus juveniles one week old.
Obviously more information to come.
