Dario dayingensis

[MrTree]

Finally took some pics today. I am keeping 3 pairs in a 30 cm cube tank right now, java fern, driftwood and some moss, two males are showing nice color but still cannot compare to how they looked in the wild. No female pictures yet as they don't really spread their fins!



Dario dayingensis was described by Kullander & Britz in 2002. Former is probably one of the most famous Apisto researcher, and later has worked on numerous fish species from Parasphaerichthys, Paedocypris, Danionella, Indostomus to big fish like Polypterus and many others.

The holotype was the single fish collected from a stream in Binghan village, Jiu Chen town, Ying Jiang County of Yunnan. They hired a farmer using Electricity(illegal but most useful) and caught only single male specimen(should have used dipnet). Few paratypes are from Teng Chong County by the Chinese scientists back in 80s.

Daying Jiang belongs to Irrawady tributary, eventually joins with Long Chuan & Ruili Jiang at Ruili and goes into Myanmmar. The local temp in winter can be as low as 4, 5 degree so should be a temperate fish, should have no problem without heater in Southern China.

Their habitat at type locality, behind is Daying Jiang, and top left corner is the Binghan bridge.



PH: 6.2
KH: 3
TDS: 42 ppm
Temp: 24 c

They are found among the vegetation hanging from the bank, very similar to Betta, the rest is all hard work.



Quite reddish when first out from the water. My net is around 70 x 50 cm, and the record was 9 specimens in a single scoop.

As for the difference with the Burmese D.hysginon is the teeth, and D.dayingensis could be a slightly(very slightly) bigger fish, but the fact is that we, aquarists cannot tell their difference from the appearance.

[Quixotic]

Gorgeous! The female is less colourful, just like that of Dario dario?

[MrTree]

Yup.

Now can see the difference with the "Dario dayingensis" pics on the german website and FishBase.

[hwchoy]

how about the place names in chinese script huh? the fish so damn swee man.

[MrTree]

Uncle Choy you don't use Hanyupinyin one ah?

云南省盈江县旧城镇丙汗村

[MrTree]

We stayed in this hot spring resort, which is only a few km before Jiu Chen town..opened by a Hokkien boss..



RMB 60 per night for this kind of room.....btw it's the most expensive one we stayed throughout the trip..



Got Sauna(RMB 15), 50 meter hot spring swimming pool (RMB 10 but free for room guest), restaurant & KTV....I checked their guest book, only a few rooms occupied everyday....no tourists come to this area actually.. But quite solid one!



But of course most important fact is that, can catch the Dario RIGHT IN FRONT of the resort! The stream actually pass by the resort then goes into the paddy field across the road. And also the mountain behind this resort is primary forest, 40 mins walk can go in already.