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SpeciesScientists Discover Mysterious New Fish in the Red Sea – and Have Never Seen It Again OceanEye to eye with Britain's hidden sharks at SharkAdemy - Oceanographic RiversIn October, biologists surveying a New York harbor for invasive fish pulled up a bright yellow one. It wasn't an invasive species at all OceanShedd Aquarium Sends Shark Eggs to Bolster Wild Populations SpeciesA rare fish has been found in Lake Ontario, North America, whose entire body is golden. It is a nati..OceanThe Great Sea Reef Is Fiji’s Wildest Dive, and a New Frontier for Conservation OceanEckerd College professor contributes to designating Biscayne Bay an Important Shark and Ray Area SpeciesRio Verde Grande Survey Identifies Fifty-Three Fish Species Facing Flow Reductions FisheriesAdams River Salmon Run in Thompson-Nicola IndiaHilsa production dropped 26% in five years, fisheries minister tells parliament SpeciesScientists Discover Mysterious New Fish in the Red Sea – and Have Never Seen It Again OceanEye to eye with Britain's hidden sharks at SharkAdemy - Oceanographic RiversIn October, biologists surveying a New York harbor for invasive fish pulled up a bright yellow one. It wasn't an invasive species at all OceanShedd Aquarium Sends Shark Eggs to Bolster Wild Populations SpeciesA rare fish has been found in Lake Ontario, North America, whose entire body is golden. It is a nati..OceanThe Great Sea Reef Is Fiji’s Wildest Dive, and a New Frontier for Conservation OceanEckerd College professor contributes to designating Biscayne Bay an Important Shark and Ray Area SpeciesRio Verde Grande Survey Identifies Fifty-Three Fish Species Facing Flow Reductions FisheriesAdams River Salmon Run in Thompson-Nicola IndiaHilsa production dropped 26% in five years, fisheries minister tells parliament

EveryFish

Cichlids

Tilapia, the pearlspot (karimeen), angelfish, discus and the cichlids of the African lakes. 20 fish on EveryFish so far.

Cichlids are a family of perch-like fish of fresh and brackish water in Africa, the Americas and South Asia. With more than 1,700 described species and many more awaiting names, they are one of the largest families of vertebrates. They have a second set of jaws in the throat that lets them handle many foods, and nearly all of them care for their eggs and young, many by carrying them in their mouths.

Evolution's showcase

In the great lakes of East Africa, Malawi, Tanganyika and Victoria, cichlids have split into hundreds of species each, with jaws and teeth shaped for scraping algae, crushing snails, eating fish, plucking scales from other fish or sifting sand. Lake Victoria's cichlids evolved in roughly 15,000 years, a blink in evolutionary time. Many were lost after the Nile perch was introduced, a famous case of the harm an introduced predator can do.

Tilapia and karimeen

Tilapias, especially the Nile tilapia, are among the most farmed fish in the world, raised in more than a hundred countries because they grow fast and tolerate poor water. India has its own cichlids: the green chromide or pearlspot, karimeen, of Kerala's backwaters, Kerala's state fish, and the small orange chromide. The angelfish, discus and oscar of South America and the mbuna of Lake Malawi are favourites of aquarists.

Famous cichlid fish

Nile tilapiaFarmed in more than a hundred countries

Still to be written: Green chromide, Discus (fish), Pterophyllum scalare, Oscar (fish), Zebra mbuna, Labidochromis caeruleus, Cyphotilapia frontosa.

Further reading

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Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

Nile tilapia: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, source

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