148 specimens they have... Probably most dating back to the 1800s. I guess the KPBBs were the thing that could have gotten us what we needed in terms of scientific funding, it's just that they didn't "boom." Imagine a DNA pool that could have been made available to science.
A good example of this are the advances made in the field of scleropages formosus were all privately funded. Like how the only way to 100% determine the gender of an Arowana is through DNA testing, made possible by funding from MAFC in line with their efforts on "conservation engineering." This concept was taken in by QH and they started actively adding to the genetic mapping pool to -guess what- create genetically engineered "Designer Arowanas." Too bad the head of that project was caught smuggling Arowanas into Australia. Not sure where they're at now. But you get my gist.
The bottomline is, in an industry like this (let's face it) science always takes the back seat and while big businesses drive; because the only language that is a constant is money.
Disappointing for us hobbyists really. It's a hard pill to swallow.
We can still call our PBB's as P. Bichir "Bichir" and our laps as P. Bichir "Lapradei" - we've been doing it for ages anyways, that's why we have Koliba, Faranah, Tikinsso, Koloton, heck, you wouldn't call a Dabola an "Endli" or a "Lap" right?
