I was surprised to read the announcement of Stenholt Clausen's passing
in this month's BNL. Clausen is probably a pretty obscure name to most killie
people today, but in the late 1950's in Africa he was one of the first to
seriously study and collect West African killifish species. So much of
Scheel's work was based on fish and information that Clausen, his fellow
Dane, sent him from the field. Clausen, through Scheel, introduced many
species to the hobby, not the least of which was the first gardneri
population -- Akure "yellow" and "blue." Scheel gave the gardneri the wrong
name (calliurum) and Clausen described them as nigerianum but gardneri they
were. This fish. more than any other, grew the killie hobby in the late
1950's.
Clausen's greatest contribution was his recognition that the
blue gularis was in fact the fish described as Aphyosemion sjoestedti and the
fish that had been called "sjoestedti" was an undescribed species that
Clausen named Rolofia occidentalis. "Roloffia" as a valid name is sadly gone
today, but it is not too much to say that Clausen's work on SJO and OCC
helped to set off the entire inquiry into the names and relationships of so
many West African killies over the years. Clausen was the pioneer. Along with
Scheel and Erhard Roloff, Stenholt Clausen was the last of three masters who
helped to make the worldwide killifish hobby and science what they are today.
Robert E.
