Whence
Neon tetra (aquarium fish)
Animal

Where does Neon tetra (aquarium fish) come from?

The neon tetra comes from the western Amazon, where Brazil, Peru and Colombia meet. Its glowing blue and red stripes help it find its shoal in dark forest streams, and they have made it one of the most widely kept aquarium fish in the world.

A fish of the dark streams

The neon tetra lives in the western and northern Amazon basin, in south-eastern Colombia, eastern Peru and western Brazil, in small streams that feed the Solimões, the upper Amazon in Brazil. It prefers acidic blackwater streams but also lives in clearwater ones, and it is not found in the whitewater rivers. About 4 cm long, it eats worms, small insects, crustaceans and plant matter. In the dark water, its shining stripes help the fish see one another.

Named after an aquarist

Neon tetras were first imported from South America and described in 1936 by the American ichthyologist George S. Myers. He named the fish Hyphessobrycon innesi in honour of William T. Innes, a publisher whom Myers later called the best known and most respected aquarist in the world; the species was afterwards moved to the genus Paracheirodon. Its colours made it a favourite in home aquariums, and today about 2 million are sold in the United States every month.

Why people think of Southeast Asia

Most neon tetras sold in the United States now come from fish farms in Southeast Asia; fewer are caught in the wild in Colombia, Peru and Brazil. Breeding them is difficult in home aquariums, since they need dim light, very soft and acidic water and plenty of tannins, and commercial-scale breeding in the United States is nonexistent. So a pet-shop neon has often travelled from Asia, even though its species comes from the Amazon.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org › Neon tetra ↗ · fishbase.se ↗ · en.wikipedia.org › William T. Innes ↗ · doi.org ↗

More Animals

Golden hamster (the pet hamster)
Animal

Golden hamster (the pet hamster)

📍 Near Aleppo, Syria

In 1930 zoologist Israel Aharoni caught a mother hamster and her litter near Aleppo, Syria. DNA studies show all domestic golden hamsters descend from one female, probably that very mother.

Merino sheep
Animal

Merino sheep

📍 Iberian Peninsula

Merino sheep were developed in medieval Spain, which guarded the fine-wool breed as a monopoly: smuggling one out could mean death. Merinos only reached Australia in 1797, via South Africa.

Domestic goat
Animal

Domestic goat

📍 Fertile Crescent (Zagros & Taurus mountains)

Goats were domesticated about 10,000 years ago in the hills of the Fertile Crescent. The oldest known herded goats come from Ganj Dareh in Iran's Zagros Mountains, where their wild ancestor, the bezoar ibex, still lives.

More from South America

Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera)
Plant

Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera)

📍 Coastal mountains of southeast Brazil

The Christmas cactus is no desert plant: its wild Schlumbergera ancestors grow on trees and rocks in the misty coastal mountains of southeast Brazil, where they're called flor de maio, 'May flower', as they bloom in the southern autumn.

Feijoa
Food

Feijoa

📍 Southern Brazil & Uruguay

New Zealanders love feijoas so much that many think they are a Kiwi fruit, but they come from the highlands of southern Brazil and Uruguay. Plants taken from Uruguay to France in 1890 later reached California and then New Zealand.

Jacaranda tree
Plant

Jacaranda tree

📍 South-central South America (N Argentina, Paraguay, S Bolivia)

Jacarandas grow wild in south-central South America, where the species is now listed as Vulnerable. Pretoria in South Africa has planted so many, tens of thousands, that it is nicknamed the 'Jacaranda City'.