Killi
   
curve

sabaj

Mark Henry Sabaj, ichthyologist.

Pictured here holding Peckoltia sabaji in the Rio Xingu.


scheel

Col J. Joergen Scheel

Feb 9, 1916 - April 13, 1989

Col J. Joergen Scheel collected, studied and wrote about killifish and was the Godfather of killifish science. A pioneer of chromosomal analysis his work with frogs was remarkable, his work with killifish was a greater advance in the science than had been accomplished so far in toto and he roughly double the amount of information and founded the American Killifish Association to disseminate this information worldwide. This was from a series of letters he wrote in the 1950s and 1960s that were later edited into two books.



schmida

Gunther Schmida( - 2022)

German photographer living in Australia, photographed Australian wildlife and write a couple of books about Rainbowfishes.


schonewille

Andre Schonewille

Killifish imarasario in the Dutch Killifish Club since the the 1980s, long before most poeple had found the Internet. I was in California in 1988 and got a call at my office from Geert van Huijgevoort and Andre, because apparantly I was one of the few other poeple in the then young Internet that talked about killifish, which I had been doing since 1986, running the killies@mejac mailing list.

It was a wnderful phone call. We chatted for about and hour and have been good friends ever since. Andre and Geert have collected killies in the wild a few times and hve a very good feel for what fish are around in Europe. Plus they're both really fun people.


Andre and Geert Collecting in Panama in 2012

1979 Photo of Lothar Seegers (1947 - 2018)

Lothar Seegers (1947 - 2018)

Author of Aqualog Killifish and other works on killifish, two of which are named after him, noted collector, explorer and taxonomist who described many species within the Cyprinodontiforme fishes.

Photo taken in 1979


speice

Paul Speice

The fish guy on TV. American aquarist of the latter half of the 20th century with two television shows about aquaria.

"My Hero and my Mentor! Aquatic Mastro and Guppies to Groupers!" - Ray "Kingfish" Lucas


sterba

Gunther Sterba (1922 - 2021)

Author of Freshwater Fishes of the World. Photo taken 2017 in Germany. Günther Sterba (1922-2021)

From "The ETYFish Project":
On 16 June 2021, one of the giants of the aquarium hobby, Günther Sterba, passed away just a few weeks after his 99th birthday. He was the author of the 1959 classic aquarium reference, reprinted and updated many times in many languages, "Susswasserfische aus aller welt" ("Freshwater Fishes of the World"). Born in Czechoslovakia, Sterba began studying medicine from a hospital bed, having been wounded in 1944 while serving in World War II. In 1947 he began studying for a second degree in zoology, which eventually became his focus. His 1949 Ph.D. dissertation was on the histomorphology of the African Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis. He became a Professor of Zoology at the University of Leipzig and Director of their Zoological Institute in 1959, where he retired as a professor emeritus in 1987. Most of his research and academic publications were in three subject areas: (1) the genesis and structure of incretory organs in lower vertebrates, (2) comparative neuroendocrinology in vertebrates, and (3) circumventricular organs and cerebrospinal fluid in vertebrates.

Sterba maintained aquaria during his youth. His love for the hobby matured as he matured, culminating in the 1959 publication of "Susswasserfische aus aller welt." Three years later an English version was published, translated and updated by Denys W. Tucker, recently fired by the Natural History Museum of London for believing the Loch Ness Monster was real (see the 1 Jan. 2020 “Name of the Week”). Professional ichthyologists were impressed with Sterba’s knowledge. Peter J. P. Whitehead of the British Museum (Natural History) praised the book in a scholarly journal, the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. This is how he opened his review: “What contribution does the aquarist make towards the science of ichthyology? Observation alone is not science, merely one of the steps involved; it leads to an accumulation of data. Science persues relevant observations, relevant that is to an existing hypothesis, correlates and compares, tests and adjusts — then pronounces. In recent years, some studies (fish behaviour, genetics) have certainly originated from aquarists’ observations. Of value to the ichthyologist too has been the ever-growing body of empirical data relating to practical fish-rearing and breeding techniques. Any truly scientific work which helps to systematize the aquarist’s know-how will benefit both aquarist and ichthyologist. Günther Sterba’s Susswasserfische aus aller welt is such a work.”

Three fishes have been named in Sterba’s honor. In 1962, Sterba’s friend Joachim Knaack, a physician, aquarist and amateur ichthyologist, described Corydoras sterbai, a popular aquarium catfish. In 1997, Axel Zarske, one of Sterba’s many students, named a darter characin, Geryichthys sterbai, on the occasion of Sterba’s 75th birthday. Zarske again honored Sterba for his 90th birthday in 2012 with the name of the Seven-Rayed Mint Tetra, Serrapinnus sterbai.








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