Buttikoferi info?
- Thread starter Joshuakahan
- Start date
I found mine years ago listed as convicts at a LFS for $1.99 each, they were maybe 2" at the time.
They were housed in a 6 ft 150gal tank.
At about 10" they started to kill all other tank mates so were moved to a 300 gal Rubbermaid stock tank, where at about 12" started to kill each other. I ended up with 1.
In nature they follow hippo's around and eat their feces as they are excreted, so a pellet made for herbivores would be what I'd use if I had them today.
They were housed in a 6 ft 150gal tank.
At about 10" they started to kill all other tank mates so were moved to a 300 gal Rubbermaid stock tank, where at about 12" started to kill each other. I ended up with 1.
In nature they follow hippo's around and eat their feces as they are excreted, so a pellet made for herbivores would be what I'd use if I had them today.
Is there a link to a study I could read about it?
Buttikoferi is found in "the lower reaches of coastal rivers in Guinea-Bissau to west Liberia "https://www.fishbase.se/summary/Heterotilapia-buttikoferi.html I wouldn't have thought that there ranges even over lap with Hippos, but could be. The green dots on the map in this link shows the Hippos modern range.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippopotamus
In the past (like about 12 years ago) I did quite a bit of reading in academic journals on fish that feed on Hippo waste. It is not particularly unusual for fish to eat Hippo waste as there many, many fish known to do this, big and small . Probably one of the most well known is Oreochromis niloticus. It's actually after seeing Nile Tilapia do this in the Hippo display at the Calgary zoo that I started researching about it in academic journals. Lots and lots in academia about Nile Tilapia feeding on hippo waste but I have yet to come across anything about Buttikoferii. Now, a zoo display may very well use a substitute animal, especially when many of these fish are seen as similar and all called "Tilapias", even though they are not particularly closely related at all.
I saw this behavior in a Hippo video, I don't remember if they specified whether the Hippos were normal or pigmy, it is my understanding that pigmy Hippos range is the same in Guinea and Liberia as Heterotilapia buttikoferi.
I would think that overlap with the pygmy Hippo would probably be even less likely. For one thing, it is such a rare and endangered animal and also found more in the interior; not really fitting with "lower reaches of coastal rivers". This map shows modern sightings of the pygmy Hippo( blue dots). The very southern range of Buttikoferi is the St. John river (right underneath where Liberia is printed).https://assets.fauna-flora.org/wp-content/uploads/old-images/PygmyHippoConservationStrat.jpg Most of the sightings are quite a bit south of the St. John river and not near the coast at all.
It would appear that Hippos are absent through most of Buttikoeri's range, though they certainly could overlap some where. Like a lot of fish they are opportunistic feeders and probably would make use of this food source given the opportunity, though I wouldn't think they are specialized feeders on Hippo dung.
In one of his AFM articles, Dr. Paul Loiselle mentioned that they are snail eaters in an area that has a very low population of snails, that's why they are so territorial.
