A Dinner in Faenza
A Dinner in Faenza
Written by Sunday, 28 January 2001 01:00
Well it is not like dating Miss Universe – Ok dolls, this a boy’s point of view! – but for a real Malawi cichlid enthusiast (and I am!) this is an opportunity not to miss at any cost! And that’s what I did the evening before the annual convention of AIC (Associazione Italiana Ciclidofili – Italian Cichlid Association) that took place, as usual, in Faenza in northeast of Italy. We, and all the rest of the gang, met Ad in a nice (well, I think so …) restaurant with the following program: chats on cichlids, food and LOTS of Italian wine. Not bad, indeed, to me! And the entire group, I must add, got on happily the whole evening.
This is the second time I met Ad (first having been in 1995: two years before my 1st trip to Lake Malawi. He gave me, these days, lot of invaluable suggestions). During the evening I asked Ad to review pics of some of my fishes to make (myself) sure there weren’t misidentification and he, kindly, accepted … NO! I will NEVER tell you the actual result of his check, suffice to say I wasn’t that wrong! And, furthermore, I couldn’t resist from pestering Ad with lot of matters: While helpings were going back and forth, I asked his opinion about the huge amount of fish deaths in the lake that were reported, while I was at the lake (back in October 1999), in local news papers: · According to him the real matter has been an abnormally strong wind (possibly the Mwera if I’m not wrong) for a really prolonged stretch of time that caused huge amounts of water low in oxygen, normally laying at the bottom, to come to the surface with an ascent rate the aerobic environment couldn’t resist and, in the end, this odd situation resulted in the losses reported in newspapers, that, always in his opinion, weren’t – all in all- that huge.
Among lots of other questions the group asked him I’d like to remember at least this one (among mine): “Why OB morph color pattern, and why OB occurs only among some species and in given locations?” Ad, after describing this as a “one million dollars question”, explained his point of view as follows (and mostly like I happen to remember: this chat was absolutely unofficial and no notes, of any kind, were taken): OB morph, which – keep it in mind - in wild occurs ONLY among M’bunas, is a colour pattern referring to the older species living in the lake thus appearing as a sort of “recessive character” while the fact it appears only in some areas goes with the theory of intralacustrine endemism and color morph which (both) happened to develop with passing centuries …
Lots of questions, and lots of wine bottles later, the dinner came to an end and we said good-bye to each other. The morning after thinking of this dinner helped me to further enjoy the excellent slides on Mozambique (Minos Reef) Ad presented us. While pics were passing on screen my “Africa sickness” blasted out once more and my heart started to “bleed” again … I know I have to return, sooner or later, to the Lake … Thank you Ad, for having reminded me of my commitment!
NB: These notes were published by MCH only after Konings’ explicit approval and are solely intended to thank him for his kindness and share an utterly interesting moment with a lot of other “cichlidiots”. Any other intention was (and is) beyond my wishes.
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