Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists 2007 – Aquapress

USA – Saint Louis, Missouri, 11-16 July 2007

Every year the Joint meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists takes place in America (only in 2003 it was outside, in Manaus, Brazil) and this year it was the 87th annual meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH). It took place in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, from 11-16 July, 2007 together with the 23rd annual meeting of the American Elasmobranch Society, the 65th annual meeting of the Herpetologists’ League and the 50th annual meeting of the Society for the study of Amphibians and Reptiles

The 2007 Joint meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists was hosted by the Saint Louis University, College of Arts and Sciences and Department of Biology. It took place in the Hyatt Regency St. Louis. Ichthyologists and Herpetologists from all over the world participated. More than 420 oral presentations and about 200 posters sessions were presented. Below a few photos of this worldwide unique event, in which also Heiko Bleher and Aquaress with aqua, International Journal of ichthyology, participated.

_{The Old Union Station, which is now a large shopping mall and home of the Hyatt Regency St. Louis, is the beautiful building were the 2007 Joint meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists took place}

_{St. Louis has many more beautiful old buildings…}

_{…and probably the most outstanding is the Congress Hall with the Gateway Arch with its 192 m height is, since 1965, the symbol of St. Louis, the Gateway to The West}

_{In the main street of St. Louis and in front of the old Court House Building the annual Strassenfest was to take place a couple of weeks after the ASIH Convention}

_{Gloria Arratia was honoured during a presentation by Joseph S. Nelson: Teleostean Phylogeny and Classification with emphasis on the contributions of Dr Gloria Arratia, after which she thanked every one}

_{Eugene Clark, world famous as “The Shark Lady” gave a beautiful oral presentaton on the behaviour of the Sand-diving Fishes of the genus Trichonotus with amazing photography of T. elegans mating at dawn. From St. Louis she left directly to her next diving off La Paz, in the Gulf of Mexico, with the age of 85}

_{Zevev Benzaken Schwartz, son of Adele and Asher Benzaken Schwartz, owner of South Americas largest ornamental fish export station in Manaus, gave an interesting presentation on Modeling spatial memory in rainbowfishes}

_{From left to right standing: Bruce B. Collette, master of Beloniformes and Tim Berra, the man responsable for the publications of the Distribution of Freswater Fish Families of the World, talking to friends. The former published with co-authors :}

_{Shore fishes of Navassa island, West Indies}

_{in aqua Vol. 6 (3) with 163 colour photographs – see www.aqua-aquapress.com}

_{Warren Burguess, author of the The Atlas of Freshwater and Marine Catfishes
and his lovely wife, both well known ichthyologists and friends of Heiko for decades (left)}

_{Mário de Pinna from the USP, São Paulo, Brazil, who is on the editorial board for aqua, gave also a very good oral presentation about the west African clupeid Denticeps clupeoides}

_{From left: Joseph S. Nelson, the Man of The Fishes of the World, Heiko Bleher, Karsten Hartel, and Barry Chernoff, the atherinid and charcoid specialist from the Chicago Field Museum}