Bostrychus expatria

The ray-finned fish

Bostrychus expatria was originally described by Herre as Boroda expatria.

Range and habitat

Bostrychus expatria is a freshwater fish in the family Butidae endemic to Lake Manguao on the island of Palawan in the Philippines.

In theory, the entire island of Palawan has been declared a wildlife preserve that should ensure the survival of the species, but wildlife laws are rarely enforced or followed in the country.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet

Despite its size, B. Expatria is predatory, known to feed mostly on the small crustaceans that make the lake's muddy bottom their home.

In crisis

A further assessment on 7 September 2020 revised this to Critically Endangered. As B. Expatria has one known population in a single freshwater lake, its fate is inextricably tied to that of its home lake. The fish population is extremely vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbance such as pollution and overfishing, and a slight disturbance to the balance of the lake could send the species to extinction.

Tilapia, a fish known for disrupting and destroying the natural balance of the ecosystems it invades, was introduced into the lake in 1992. The presence of this voracious species may drive B. Expatria into extinction.

Bostrychus expatria is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Bostrychus expatria, Wikidata item Q21996015. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.