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LET'S PROTECT THE LAST VIETNAM BONY TONGUE FISH !
Phung My Trung - WebAdmin
As we know, the diversity of species in the earth has increased since the first life appeared. However, it is not a regular increase. There were periods that had a strong speciation but there were also periods with mass extinction.
Extinction is known to be one of the rules of nature. So why have people had to pay much concern in the disappearance of many species nowadays? The answer for this question is the interrelation between extinction and speciation. Speciation is a slow process gaining mutations of one species and gradually forms new species after thousands years or even millions years. If the rate of speciation is equal to the rate of extinction, biodiversity will reach the balance or even increase.
In nature, there are some populations with just a few individuals left could remain for many years or many tens years. However, they would come to extinct if there was no effort from us to save them. And dragon fish, Scleropages formonosus,is such an amply evidence for that fact.
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Australian Arowana - Scleropages jardinii - Picture: Nguyen Quang Toai |
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As we know, the diversity of species in the earth has increased since the first life appeared. However, it is not a regular increase. There were periods that had a strong speciation but there were also periods with mass extinction.
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Indonesia Arowana - Scleropages formosus Picture: Phung My Trung |
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Extinction is known to be one of the rules of nature. So why have people had to pay much concern in the disappearance of many species nowadays? The answer for this question is the interrelation between extinction and speciation. Speciation is a slow process gaining mutations of one species and gradually forms new species after thousands years or even millions years. If the rate of speciation is equal to the rate of extinction, biodiversity will reach the balance or even increase.
In nature, there are some populations with just a few individuals left could remain for many years or many tens years. However, they would come to extinct if there was no effort from us to save them. And dragon fish, Scleropages formonosus, is such an amply evidence for that fact.
This species belongs to the Osteoglossidae family, Clupeiformes order. It has a long thin body, long mouth barbel, big scales, long pectoral fin, rearward pectoral fin and dorsal fin. This kind of fish can reach the size of 90 cm long and 8 kg weight (Vietnam Red book, page 253). It has a restrict distribution in La Nga river, Tri An Lake and recently in Hochiminh city area. In Vietnam, it is such a rare fish that although there were many investigations taken but they didn’t have any specific report of this species. At this time, the dragon fish Scleropages formosusis thought to be extinct in Vietnam.
However in our investigations on 4th February and 10th May, 2003, we happened to find about tens individuals of this dragon fish in the source of the river in Vinh Cuu nature reserve, Dongnai province, Vietnam. The photograph below is one of the newest justifications for this fact. The exact number, between 100 to 1000 individuals of this species living there is still being researched.
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Vietnam Arowana - Scleropages formosus - Picture: Phung My Trung |
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The result of our investigation shows that these individuals are really a part of an “alive death” species, the species that is thought to be extinct. However, with a small number of this dragon fish in their recent habitat, no one could make sure that this rare species will live well and reproduce enough to exist for a long time. In order to protect them efficiently, we need to determine what to do to get them out of the threat of being extinct such as forbidding destroy the forests, pollute or divide their habitat and we also need to prevent their dispersion.
There are still many requisitions of preservation of not only the dragon fish Scleropages formosus but also many other species that are facing the threat of extinction. Could we protect them efficiently and could Scleropages formosusbe well reserved in new forming Vinh Cuu nature reserve.
It is a natural rule that every each species has his right to exist in the earth and we human are not allowed to destroy any of them. Moreover, we must try to minimum the unnatural extinct of species because of human living activities.
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