Pterolebias bokermanni was first dicovered by Harald Schulz in August 1953. It was named after Werner C.A. Bokermann, Zoological Department at M.N.R.J. (Rio de Janeiro) who donated the types of the species.

The type locality is Rio Guajara-Mirim, Guaporé, Brasil.

Pterolebias bokermanni was revalidated from being a synonym of P. longipinnis by Costa (2003:293): “…Pterolebias bokermanni Travassos the name sometimes considered as synonym of P. longipinnis Garman)
In CLOFFSCA (Costa in Reis et al., 2003 ) he confirmes this by quoting P. bokermanni for Amazon and Paraguay River basins in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina, while restricting P. longipinnis to the Amazon basin in Brazil.
Herefor all records of P. longipinnis for Argentina correspond to Pterolebias bokermanni.

The problem is the huge range that the species can be found. The species lives in Argentina, Paraguay and Brasil.

Other components of the Genus are P. longipinnis, P. luelingi and P. phasianus.

In a recent publication Costa (2005) places P. bokermanni again in the synonymy of P. longipinnis without giving references to his own works published in 2003.
Hence the listing of López et al. complies with the former and the current systematical situation of this species.

Breeding Pterolebias is for specialist in SAA's (South Amercan Annuals) relatively easy. For new hobbyist it is good to know some rules for the proper breeding set-up and the way of storing the eggs.

The species of the genus are rather large and productive and if live food is always given in rich varity and quantity the number of eggs is huge during their schort lifetime. Under Aquarium conditions the fishes can live over one year. You can keep several individues in one tank as they are not very agressive to each other. Both, male and female, dive into the soft soil to burry their eggs. To give good accomodatation for them they need also a high container. The best you can do is fill a high container with lid on top and drill a hole of about 5 cm diameter in the side, a little bit above the 15 cm line. Fill it with about 10 cm high layer of peatmoss that was boiled well before and put it in a tank of approximately 25 liters (6 gallon). Use one male and 1 to 4 females.

Once in the 2 weeks you can change the peat in the container and store the outcoming peat after squeezing it and drying until it has the humidity of fresh tobacco.

The hobbyist need to have some patience as it can take up to 3 to 6 months before the eggs are ready to hatch. It often depends on a combination of humidity, temperature and type of peatmoss. The higher the temperature and the more moist the peat, the shorter the incubation time. On the other hand is the loss of all the eggs possible if the peat is to wet. So, keep the average way of storage and keep the peat at 24 - 28 degrees Celcius. It is wise to rinse the peat intensively before drying and storing as it can happen that detritus of the fishes or remains of food can fungus the eggs during the long period of incubation.

If you breed them the way described above all Pterolebias are stunning beginnerfish that will give you lot of fun.

Remarks:

Pterolebias phasianus however is a bit more problematic in reproduction as eggs often disappear without any good explanation.

Max. size 12.0 cm.
Dorsal 9.2,
Anal 18.8,
D/A 11.0,
LL scale count (average)29.8
Pre- dorsal length to % SL – 79.3 %
Depth to % SL – 25.6 %

Travassos, H. 1955. Notas ichtiologicas. VII. Uma nova Especie do Genero Pterolebias Garman (Actinopterygii, Cyprinodontiformes). Revta. Brasil Biol., 15 (1): 35, figs. 1-2.

Costa, W.J.E.M. (2005):
The Neotropical annual killifish genus Pterolebias Garman (Teleostei: Cyprinodontiformes: Rivulidae): phylogenetic relationships, descriptive morphology, and taxonomic revision.
Zootaxa 1067: 1-36