According to His Personal Ad, This Poor Fish Is Desperate for a Date
The ad starts out like any other, though it’s a bit more upfront than usual: Male Seeking Female: Must Want Kids. It goes on to describe the bachelor in question as being desperate and ugly. Interested?
Caretakers at the ZSL London Zoo are hopeful to get a response as quickly as possible. The facility is home to two endangered Mangarahara cichlid, a type of fish so perilously close to extinction, the few that remain exist only in captivity. The problem, however, is that the two living in London—and another living in Berlin—are all male.
In order to keep the species alive, those males have needed to mate.
But after failing to locate a female through their usual network of international zoos and aquarium associations, zoo administrators finally released a public plea—titled like a personal ad—seeking a suitable breeding partner.
Their hope is to somehow locate a female through private aquarium owners, fish collectors or hobbyists as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, finding a mate for the Mangarahara cichlid can be a pretty tough sell, even if a female is located. As if this poor creature needed any more strikes against it, the males of the species are known for killing their female partners while in the throes of mating.
In fact, the Mangarahara cichlid in Berlin did just that recently when zoo officials tried to mate him with the only female known to be in captivity.
“It’s a fairly common thing with cichlids,” said London Zoo’s aquarium curator Brian Zimmerman in his interview with BBC.
Named for the Mangarahara River in Madagascar, where they were first found, the species’ numbers have dropped to a mere handful. Their natural environment was disrupted considerably by the construction of dams, which dried up its natural habitat.
And researchers don’t think the fish will be able to bounce back. Zimmerman said, “’'m not very hopeful. This freshwater fish crisis is huge worldwide, and as water becomes diverted for human use, it becomes scarcer and fish generally lose out.”
As more of the world’s wildlife becomes threatened by human activity, utilizing creative ways to facilitate breeding these creatures isn’t unusual at all.
For instance, while cheetahs don’t have an issue in finding partners, they do tend to carry a lot of anxiety, making breeding difficult. Researchers have known for some time that simply exposing the cheetahs to domesticated dogs calms them, and so when it’s time to mate with their partners, they tend to be more successful.
And at the the Wolong Giant Panda Reserve Center in China, handlers dress up in panda costumes so that the animals—who are notoriously difficult to mate—stay accustomed to spending time with other pandas, instead of people.
If only it were that simple for the Mangarahara cichlid—at this stage of his species’ existence, the issue really lies with humanity and the industry we constructed that destroyed his home.
But the search isn’t over yet. If you think you can help locate a female mate, either because you or someone you know is a fish enthusiast, the good news is that the species tends to have a unique appearance, making them easily identifiable.
Zimmerman told the BBC, “They are not a particularly beautiful fish—they are gorgeously ugly, they are unusual,” he said. “They are more a connoisseur’s type of fish. They need quite a bit of space; the males are bigger than your hand, and they need a decent tank.”
A female Mangarahara cichlid. Photo: ZSL London Zoo
While even those at the London Zoo are not enthusiastic about this species’ survival, their determination to exhaust all possibilities in order to keep it alive just a little longer is admirable. If big business operated with just some of those same principles, the Mangarahara cichlid would still be plentiful today.
Related stories on TakePart:
• The Truth Behind Fishzilla and His Killer Reputation
• Real-Life Shape Shifter: New Superpower Discovered in Certain Bats
• How Can We Stop Lionfish From Taking Over Our Oceans? Eat Them.
A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a medical writer. In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a web editor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. @andritweets | TakePart.com
