Egg and Fish List operational
The egg and fish list is again operational for BKA Members. You must be logged in to the site to access it.
New description and a new species of Nothobranchius
Redescription of the seasonal killifish species Nothobranchius ocellatus and description of a related new species Nothobranchius matanduensis, from eastern Tanzania (Teleostei: Nothobranchiidae) Brian R. Watters, Béla Nagy, Pieter D. W. van der Merwe, Fenton P. D. Cotterill and Dirk U. Bellstedt* Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters/IEF-1149/pp. 1-28 Published 26 June 2020 LSID: http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:7E606C25-EDD9-4D05-81E3-B368688851CE DOI: http://doi.org/10.23788/IEF-1149 The description of Nothobranchius ocellatus was based on a unique holotype, comprising an immature male, and a photograph of a female. The holotype is apparently lost….
BKA Management Committee -Nominations Requested
BKA Members are invited to nominate candidates for the Management Committee. The incumbent members are all standing for re-election but as a democratic Association it remains open for any paid-up member to stand against them. Potential candidates need a proposer and seconder. Any questions please contact chair@killis.org.uk
Sex ratios deviate across killifish species without clear links to life history
Will Sowersby, Alejandro Gonzalez-Voyer & Björn Rogell Evolutionary Ecology – volume 34, pages411–426(2020) Abstract Sex ratios can differ from an expected equal proportion of males and females, carrying substantial implications for our understanding of how mating systems evolve. Typically, macro-evolutionary studies have been conducted without assessing how deviations from an equal sex ratio could be explained by sex-biased mortality or dispersal. Our understanding of sex ratio evolution independent of these confounds, in addition to any putative links between skewed sex ratios and other factors…
Outage on website
The website is now active again. Our host UK2 had detected malicious bot activity and shut down the site while they investigated. We can assure you that no data was compromised as the bot activity was confined to a single application that had no access to the website itself or other applications. It was troubling for us and you that we had no notification but UK2 acted correctly in shutting down the site to prevent any further malicious activity. The…
Review of the Nothobranchius ugandensis species group
2020 BKA CONVENTION CANCELLED
At the Management Committee Meeting on 15th April 2020 the decision was taken to cancel this year’s Convention. Our concern was and is the Covid-19 situation. As anticipated and confirmed today by Government, movement restrictions are likely to remain in place until June and may continue beyond that in some areas. This will undoubtedly affect our ability to carry out preparations in a safe, lawful and timely manner. We also took into account that travel plans and booking time off…
Covid-19 associated issues
Dear Members, Yesterday the West London Group took the sensible decision to cancel their April Auction. Last week the Spanish Killifish Association cancelled their Annual Convention and many other aquarist events are being cancelled or postponed. It is worth remembering that events can attract people from far and wide and organisers have to take into account government advice/instructions as well as consider local factors. It can be frustrating to find that an event has been cancelled but the decision will…
The World wakes up to the ability of killis to halt their own development
Although the ability of killis to arrest their own development up to three times has been known for some time this fascinating aspect of their life history has now hit the headlines: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/20/african-killifish-may-hold-key-to-stopping-ageing-in-humans The BKA exists to promote these beautiful fish and to help conserve them. The natural world contains so many secrets that can assist the human race, we should all see the benefit in protecting biodiversity. Follow this link to see an interesting video by sciencemag.org on diapause,…
Another great Convention
The BKA Convention took place last weekend and featured a wide array of stunning killis. Chairman Gordon Temperley walked away with Best in Show and our guest speaker Alberto Reis from the APKA (Portugese Killifish Association ) also took several awards. The standard of entries meant that several categories were closely contested and the ‘Breeders Teams’ (consisting of 3 males and 3 females) covered Eurasia, Africa and South America. At the subsequent auction these beautiful fish started several bidding wars,…
