FAMILY TREE: H. H. BOECK; PHOTO: R. HUSSMANN
AMAZONAS
Blue-Eyes Family TreeOrder Atheriniformes
(The Silversides or Hardyheads)Atherinidae
(silversides)Kiunga Scaturiginichthys PseudomugilMugilidae Pseudomugilidae
(blue-eyes)Melanotaenidae
(rainbowfishes)ballochi (Glass Blue-Eye)
bleheri (Heiko’s Blue-Eye)vermeilipinnis
(Redfinned Blue-Eye)connieae (Popondetta Blue-Eye)
furcatus (Forktail Blue-Eye)
gertrudae (Spotted Blue-Eye)
signifer (Pacific Blue-Eye)
signatus (Pacific Blue-Eye variant)
tenellus (Delicate Blue-Eye)
mellis (Honey Blue-Eye)
paskai (Paska’s Blue-Eye)
paludicola (Swamp Blue-Eye)
reticulatus (Vogelkop Blue-Eye)
ivantsoffi (Ivantsoff ’s Blue-Eye)
majusculus (Cape Blue-Eye)
novaeguineae (New Guinea Blue-Eye)
cyanodorsalis (Neon Blue-Eye)
pellucidus (Transparent Blue-Eye)
inconspicuus (Inconspicuous Blue-Eye)
luminatus (Red Neon Blue-Eye)Safia to Australia, and Crockford bred them. In August
1981, Heiko Bleher collected P. furcatus and brought live
fish to Germany, where they were bred by two aquarists
who were probably responsible for spreading them in
Europe. To this day, Pseudomugil furcatus, known as the
Forktail Blue-Eye, is the most widely available blue-eye in
the hobby.Increased interest
We are still learning about this fish family and its care.
Due to increased ease of travel, the blue-eyes’ habitats are
being visited more often by adventurers, aquarists, and
scientists—including Dr. Gerald R. Allen, who has been
researching the fishes of Australia and New Guinea since- Allen emigrated from the United States to Austra-
lia, became a curator at the West Australian Museum in
Perth in 1974, and works extensively with both marine
and freshwater fishes, especially rainbowfishes and blue-
eyes. He has made research trips to New Guinea and has
been responsible for many discoveries and descriptions.
His book Fascinating Rainbowfish was published in 1996,
and it is still worth reading today. Allen’s publications at-
tracted the interest of aquarists in Europe and the United
States. He and other researchers discovered new species
of blue-eyes, described them, and made them available to
aquarists. The demand for these fishes increased, and the
modern blue-eye era began.
In February 1973, biologist Raymond Moore discov-
ered a slender, surface-inhabiting fish in a tributary of
the Pahoturi River in Papua New Guinea. Allen found
it six years later near the village of Turture and collected
live animals and transported them to Australia, but due
to their lack of color they never caught on and are barely
known in the aquarium trade. The species was described
in 1981 by Allen & Moore, who called it Pseudomugil
paludicola. In 1994, Wim Heemskerk of The Netherlands
brought specimens of this species back from the United
States and gave me several, which I kept and bred. It is
known as the Swamp Blue-Eye, and you have to be a big
blue-eye fan to keep this nearly colorless fish for long. In
adult males, a faint yellow coloration of the unpaired fins
can be seen—or is that just my imagination?