Abuja

Wild male collected in the Tarka River, Abuja.
Photo from BKA newsletter No.238, June 1985 reprinted with permission from Brian Sell.

Codes
 None known. Also known as Tarka River.
History

This population was brought back to the UK in 1985 by Clive Charlton, a worker in an open cast mining company who distributed them to BKA members in the Cornwall area.
They were collected on Wednesday 10th December 1984 in a pool along the Tarka River bed.
A total of 20 fish were collected in a weedy area of the pool & were put into a gallon paint tin.
Clive's steward returned to the area the following day & collected another dozen or so fish.
These were taken by road to Kura near Jos which took 4 & a half hours, then on to Kano for the flight to Gatwick. Only one fish died in transit.
*Note. A population was distributed & were known to be in the USA & reintroduced back to the BKA from the USA as Tarka River. These may have been the Abuja collection.
Habitat

Abuja is situated about midway between Lokoja, at the confluense of the Niger & Benue Rivers to the south, & Kaduna to the north.
The area is savannah with rainfall around 40" a year which falls between June-October. The dry season arrives suddenly with a cool, dry wind called the Harmattan. The area has frequent bush fires. By January rivers have dried to isolated pools or even dried out completely.

Dried up Tarka River bed showing isolated pockets of water. Collection site for the Abuja population.
Photo courtesy of Brian Sell from material given to him by Clive Charlton.

Dried up Tarka River bed showing isolated pockets of water. Collection site for the Abuja population.
Photo courtesy of Brian Sell from material given to him by Clive Charlton.


The biotope was at the base of a small cateract & had a flow of a few gallons per minutehad a lot of green weed & algae. Also found were a small barb sp.
In a later article it was reported that the original collection point had dried out completely.
Images

Abuja. Photo courtesy of Roger Gladwell

Abuja. Photo courtesy of Brian Sell.

Abuja. Photo courtesy of Roger Gladwell

Male from the original collection.
Photo courtesy of Brian Sell.

Abuja (top) with Akure (bottom).
Photo courtesy of Brian Sell

Traits
 Fish bred from the original wild stock were reported to grow to a maximum size of only 50 mm.
Although the biotope was reportedly seasonal, eggs in aquaria hatched in 14 days, with young reported as being slow growers taking 3 months to attain 1".
Variability
 Fairly low although the blue phenotype has not been observed in captivity in recent years.
Notes
 In a follow up article in BKA newsletter No.248, April 1986 (see also No.238) Brian Sell reported getting some blue phenotypes showing a blue edge to the anal fins from the fish originally collected by Clive Charlton's steward from the second collection. On borrowing Clive's original stock following the loss of his male he raised 20 young, 5 of which were males, all of which had yellow anal fins.