Endlers Livebearers are a relatively new species available to the tropical fish hobbyist.
Although they were first discovered by Franklyn F Bind in 1937 in Laguna de Patos in Venezuela, they were not introduced into the aquarium trade until after they were rediscovered by Dr. John Endler in 1975.
The unique little fish caught Dr. Endler’s attention due to the flashy green color that most of them exhibit.
Dr. Endler gave some of his fish to Dr. Donn Eric Rosen, Curator of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History and to Dr. Klaus Kallman, of the New York Aquarium.
Dr. Kallman later introduced the new fish to the German aquarium community. Unbeknownst to Dr. Endler, Dr. Kallman gave the little fish the name “Endler’s Livebearer”.
It wasn’t until several years later that Dr. Endler found out about the “Endler’s Livebearer” name when a colleague asked him about them.
The progeny of the original stock that was brought back by Dr. Endler in 1975 eventually lost much of its wonderful coloration due to inbreeding and hybridization.
Dr. Endler himself noted that the original stock brought back to Europe had lost much of its coloration and beauty after a few years of inbreeding and hybridization.
Fortunately, more Endlers livebearers have since then been collected from the wild and care has been taken to make sure that pure Endler populations are maintained by hobbyists.
This is one of the reasons the Endler classifications were created.
Thank you for this background history . As a hobbyist dedicated to keeping a single population true to its brilliant and vibrant colors as discovered in nature I desire to share this history with others. My one and only population that I work with is El Tigre Campoma
We kept El Tigre as well. The colors are amazing! If you desire to share a little on our site about your history and current endeavors with your Enders we would be happy to make you a publisher on our website. Because this website is dedicated to keeping fish, especially Endlers, we ask is that it be information only with no sales or spam. If you are interested, I can create an account for you and give you a username and password. From there you can write as many posts as you desire and share any fish photos you want to.