Critically Endangered
Around the World in 80 Days - Day 52
I tried very very hard to find out what this fish looks like. I contacted the place that was listed as a resource on everything I found about this fish, but did not hear back. What I found was not much. There were only 2 of them discovered in one spot on the Morehead River in Papua New Guinea back in 1973. They have not been seen since then. I do not know if the
specimens found at that time were preserved even. I could have made up a fish like I did with the bee. I looked at many different species in the genus and unlike the bee, they do not all look even remotely similar except for their shape. I mean some of the fish were striped, plain, and one was called striped but looked plaid! All I could learn was that they are not quite 10 inches, and they are not dangerous to humans. One book I found their name in "The Sea and Freshwater Fishes of Australia & New Guinea, Volume 2" said they may be related to a specific Grunter in Australia. One site said "Nothing is known about the Raymond's Grunter", which was not helpful.
I decided to paint the shape of the fish, and was thinking about what else to do with it when I figured maybe the river they live in would work. Well, I couldn't find any pictures of the river either. I finally went onto Google Earth. This is the screenshot I did of the river. It was interesting because most of the river was shown with almost no detail. This is from one section where there was more information. It seems to be a fairly brownish river, but I do not know if the river is usually like that or not. To be honest, this is the first time I have ever done a landscape of any sort in watercolour! Remember, I had not done more than a couple watercolour paintings before starting this project. I would have preferred to do it a bit larger than a 4"x6". Now I'm kind of thinking about the eventual continuation of this project after the year is over. I could do a larger version of this style of painting in acrylic or oils. I still have a little over 1/4 of a year to decide.