Heiko Bleher was again, as every year since 1964-65, on one of his yearly Amazon- expeditions and came back with some amazing new  discoveries. He was able to penetrate into four different river basins,  which is very difficult to reach, but for a  chartered plane and a  small boat.  As the first ever fishes explorer and researcher in that region,  he was able to reach the upper Apaporis River (see some real photos  of the area in his book, Bleher's Discus volume I on pages 497-500)  and discovered there new Apistogramma species, new Corydoras, several  new Loricariids, more then 20 unidentified characoid species, amazing  knife fishes, a new Green Discus Variant, a certainly new angelfish  species and many more.For whole days he and his companions could not  see any  living soul, only untouched nature and wild animals – paradise is  nothing as compared to this place. In the upper Apaporis, having  passed over 3 different waterfalls he was able to find a new  characoid in the middle of a waterfall, an amazing fish which  lives all its live in the fast current of a waterfall   see a short  video under www.aquapress-bleher.com of this discovery.

And most of  the fish species he found in the Apaporis were new for science and to the most beautiful hobby in the world... Heiko managed to bring many of the species back alive and he will introduce them to breeders to make them available for aquarists around the  world, as he has been doing this all his live – and so far he introduced  over 4000  species.

In another river, the Caquetá basin, he was able to find miniature  fishes, especially of the characoid genus Elachocharax, perfect  beauties for the Nano-Aquarium, which reach  less then 10mm TL.

Heiko went also back to his original collecting site in the Rio Adabapo  in Venezuela where he collected the very first Pterophyllum altum in  the late 1960s and early 1970s –  he was the first to introduce them  into the Aquarium Hobby. Since then this beauty has been a myth and  been confused with similar looking P. scalare from the Rio Negro. Some  breeders claim to have bred P. altum, but actually up to this day no  one has successfully bred it  - not the true P. altum, described from  the Rio Adabapo by Pellegrin in 1904... Heiko was able to catch at  night-time some specimens of at least 42 cm fin span, amazing  beauties.  Natasha, his wife, made fantastic underwater movies and  more than 5000 photos of over 500 species Heiko discovered and  collected on these trips between November 22nd and December 16th, 2009.

Below you will find a photo review of the teleconference with Heiko Bleher which took place during Aquazoo Fair. On Sunday January 31st, the last day of the fair, Heiko Bleher  made a two-hour long, colourful and full of photos relation on his recent journey.  Great thanks to Michał Paczkowski - interpreter, as well as to assisting Szymon Wiśniewski and staff of the International Poznań Fair for conducting this teleconference.

Presented pictures: Natasha Khardina i Heiko Bleher.
Photographed from the screen: Jacek Marmela.
Relacja z targów i Mistrzostw zamieszczona zostanie w najbliższym numerze "Naszego Akwarium"