Just a few years ago, the fish fauna of western Africa was only known to us from literature. When studying the relevant works and the numerous large and small treatises on West African fish that had appeared in the course of time, one involuntarily said to oneself that a whole range of the species described are very well suited for keeping in our indoor aquariums 'Dark continent' also species that were not yet known to science.

Why had no fish been imported alive from West Africa, while the most diverse species of freshwater fish had long since acquired the right of home in our aquariums from almost all other regions of the world? As I hear, import attempts had been made in previous years, but negative results had always been achieved, which is why the matter was abandoned as pointless.

The reason lies in the shipping and landing conditions on the one hand and in the climatic conditions of the country on the other. In the spring of 1905 my friend, Mr. Schroot, a senior acquaintance, Mr. Groeb, who as a seaman had already made the voyage to West Africa, succeeded in winning the matter, and at the beginning of July 1905 the first "import" started here , it consisted of a single young specimen of a cichlid species.

That was little, but something, and it provided us with evidence that importing fish from West Africa was not one of the impossible. Equipped with fishing gears and transport vessels, Groch set out again in August 1905 on the journey to the mouths of the Niger, from which he returned on November 4, 1905. The result of this trip was a surprisingly favorable one, apart from a few more specimens of the cichlids that we brought with us in July, this import also contained seven species that were completely new to us and these were, as time went on, Haplocheilus sexfasciatus Gill, Haplocheilus spilargyreus, Fundulus gularis var. A, Fundulus arnoldi Boulenger, Eleotris lebretonis, Hemichromis fasciatus Peters and another cichlid.

This transport, which showed Groch's skill in catching and transporting fish, also gave us a picture of the biodiversity of the fish fauna of the Niger, as one of the species mentioned was already new to science, namely.