Endler's Livebearer ( ELB )

Also refered to as Endler, Endlers guppy, Cumana guppy (Alexander and Breden 2004) or Campoma (Acanthophacelus) wingei Poeser, Kempkes & Isbruecker, 2005

Prof. John A. Endler told in a letter that he originally collected these fishes in 1975 in Laguna de Patos, Cumana, in northeastern Venezuela. Prof. Endler said that he found them in warm (27 Degrees or 81 Fahrenheit), hard water which was very green with unicellular algae. They coexested with regular guppies (Poecilia Reticulata). Prof. Endler gave a stock of Poecilia sp. ''Endler's'' to Dr. Donn Eric Rosen, the then Curator of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, who was going to name it (but died a few years later). Dr. Rosen gave some of the stock to a mutual friend of Dr. Endler, Dr. Klaus Kallman, then of the New York Aquarium, and an famous fish geneticist. Dr. Kallman introduced it to the German aquarium community. Dr. Kallman didn't tell Dr. Endler at the time, but he gave it the name ''Endler's Livebearer'' or ''Endler's Guppy''. From the German aquarists it spread throughout Europe and Dr. Endler didn't hear about it until about 1980 when an English collegue asked him about the ''Endler's Livebearer''. From Europe they were distributed to America, Japan and elsewhere

Country: Venezuela. State: Sucre. State Capital: Cumana. This was the first city founded on the American Continents. The area is desert and the climate is hot and dry, being on the lee of the mountains. Additionally, with Endler's comments we understand that a little salt added to the water will be beneficial to the fish, they live in brackish water. Cumana is coastal and, like San Diego, is surrounded by mountains which capture the rain before it reached the basin. Unlike San Diego, the city is on the leeward side of those mountains. Both San Diego receives approximately 10 inches of rain in a normal year, squeezed from the clouds before going over the mountains, Cumana gets slightly less as the tropical rain forests on the leeward side of the mountains get the majority of the rain. Prof. Ronald A. Newcomb added other minerals to the water also to help fertilize the plants and provide improved nutrition to the fish through the algae and nekton, which can usually absorb minerals directly from the water, unlike the fish.

The overall shape of the male fish is very much like the wild guppy males. The position of the tails and gonopodium are similar though the shape of the dorsal fins are significantly different and there are no fancy tails shapes as there are in guppies, though

swords are know to appear in various populations from time to time. These have been reported in various populations with known heritage back to Endler's original group as well as recent wild caught populations. In Prof. Newcomb's population they pop up infrequently for one generation with small or long sword extensions that last only one generation. The fish is slightly smaller than the guppy and the females are slightly smaller than the guppy female, but when the female gets older the female grows and when the female grows it bears more guppy and after the birth of the guppies the female will grow so there is place for more guppies. So it will go on and on, and then there comes a time your auquarium gets to small and you will need to buy a new aquarium, sell them or feed the guppies to a fish which needs to eat living food or flesh.

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