What I brought Home from The All Aquarium Catfish Convention

[TwoTankAmin]

I was at the 9th All aquarium Catfish Convention in Hearndon, Va. for the weekend of of Oct. 7th. I was a room seller but Zi went to see old friends and because the world's greatest expert on the plecos in the Big bend of the Rio Xingu was one of the featured speakers. He is a college professor in Brazil and he has a facility adjacent to the Xingu. https://biotopeaquariumproject.com/bap-experts/leandro-melo-de-sousa

In the vendor room was a table related to project IctioXingu. They were selling high quality photos and a few special posters all of the proceeds from which were going to the project. Since all the pleos I am working with the past few years are from the Big Bend of the Xingu, of course I shelled out for the most expesnsive offering and I gave them a donation as well. As a result Leandro offered to sign the poster. It is now my second favorite fish related "keepsake" after a fist sized rock from the Big Bend I was given by Jools of Planetcatfish. Of course I has it framed so I could hang it on a wall near tanks.

 

[GaryE]

You won't meet many nicer people than Leandro. I'm looking forward to seeing printed copies of the book he and Oliver Lucanus have been working on, on the Xingu. It's going to be a must have.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have a pretty amazing book which was written by Mauricio Camargo, Heriberto Gimênes Junior, Leandro Melo de Sousa & Lucia Rapp Py-Daniel: Loricariids of the Middle Rio Xingu. What makes this book so amazing is that it is bi-lingual. Each page is repeated such that on one side it is in English and on the other it is in German. The photos in this book are amazing. Not only do they show the fish, but they often show a map indicating where the fish are found and then a picture of the river in that area. They also frequently show pictures of the mouth of many of the plecos.

One of my favorite story involves Ingo Seidel. I have a copy of his book, Back to Nature Guide to L-Catfishes. My first chance to meet and talk with Ingo was at an event about an hour from where I live. I offered to make a donation if they could arrange for me to have a chance to meet Ingo and talk with him one on one for a bit. I was so excited about this that I forgot to bring his book with me to ask him to sign it. I explained this to him.

Fast forward to my first Catfish Convention where Ingo was a featured speaker and again I forgot to bring the book for Ingo to sign. Of course I mentioned this fact to him. Two years later I was at CatCon again and I bumped into Ingo in the lobby. After saying hi, I said to him, "Can you believe that once again I forgot to bring the book for you to sign?" to which he replied, "And, here I flew all the way over here just to sign the book for you." We both had a good laugh. But I still have the book unsigned and I may never get the chance to get it signed now.