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Article History

Received: 2 October 2018

Accepted: 31 March 2019

First Online: 25 April 2019

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: The sampling procedure was carefully planned and reviewed before executed according the recommendation of []. Sacrificing of fish specimens comply with the German Tierschutzgesetz (TSchG) including §2 (rearing), & 7a(1)6. Neither the technical staff nor the scientist involved in this study performed experiments concerning the EU directive 2010/63/EU notably those defined in the General Provisions of Article 1 §1 (use of animals for scientific and educational purpose) and §2 (animals used or intended for use in procedures). Therefore, no separate ethical approval for animal use concerning this research of this study was necessary. The study did not include any species protected by CITES, European or German law (see:; query for all fishes and lampreys). Specimens for this study were either collected in the wild in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia (permits see below), obtained from the ornamental fish trade. Most specimens were obtained prior to the legal implementation of the Nagoya Protocol (12.10.2014) and its corresponding EU Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) regulations, which came into effect on 9th November 2015. The few exception are: <i>B. vittatus, B. minor. B. leo B. leo, T. unimaculatum, T. macrostoma</i> and <i>T.</i> cf. <i>variable</i> which were collected in Zambia in 2015 (permits see below). Regardless of the sample date of tissues we checked whether any national legislation for access and utilization of samples apply for the countries of sample origin (including traded specimens and their potential origin): Angola (07.05.2017), Burundi (12.10.2014), Cameroon (28.02.2017), Democratic Republic of the Congo (05.05.2015), Egypt (12.10.2014), Eritrea (not applicable), Israel (not applicable), Malawi (26.08.2014), Republic of the Congo (14.05.2015), South Africa (10.01.2013), Tanzania (19.01.2018), Tunisia (not applicable) and Zambia (20.05.2016); see. Permissions for specimen collection in the wild and exportation of samples were granted for the field trips to DRC and Zambia by the Ministries of the Interior and Agriculture Direction Provinciale du Bas-Congo (DRC Research permit and export permit No. AC/113/2013/I.S.P/MBNG/AUT.AC; issued by the by the Republique Democratique du Congo, Institute Superieur Pedagogique de Mbanza-Ngungu; sampling in DRC and supervised by Paul N’lemvo Budiongo, Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN)); and by Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in Kasama (collection and export permits were issued the 05.10.2015 by Alex D. Chilala; Provincial Agricultural Coordinator, Western Province, Republic of Zambia) who also supervised the sampling in Zambia).

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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