2020 seems to be a year of Xiphophorus couchianus

This little fish is known to be extinct in the wild for more than 50 years. It is probably the most popular among the northern platyfish included in the Xiphophorus – Northern Platyfish project, yet it is not the most widely kept. But this year was very successful for our breeding efforts.

The picture shows part of our stock in Ostrava (Czech republic) in March 2019. We've kept this species here for many years, but our population was not doing very well and we had no males. And here the XNP project helped – we received 16 individuals of X. couchianus from another project member in Germany (thank you, Michael). These were offspring of our own population, which made its tour across Austria to Germany few years ago. During 2019, we have managed to breed them and bring some offspring to Austria, but most important was to build a strong base of our own stock. Right now, Ostrava Zoo and other local members of the project keep more than 300 X. couchianus.

2020 is not good for travelling, so we have accumulated quite a lot of fish without being able to transfer them to another member. But we look forward to 2021 with the hope of meeting other responsible aquarists and sharing our fish. We need to help each other and keep distributing the fish in a wise manner – this is the core idea of the ÖVVÖ conservation projects.