Chilotilapia rhoadesii
| Chilotilapia rhoadesii | ||||||||||||
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Chilotilapia rhoadesii |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Chilotilapia | ||||||||||||
| Boulenger , 1908 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Chilotilapia rhoadesii | ||||||||||||
| Boulenger, 1908 |
Chilotilapia rhoadesii ( Gr . "Cheilos" = + lip tilapia ), the blue head screw eater , is an African cichlid , the endemic in the East African in the southern part Lake Malawi occurs. The species was named after El Rhoades, who discovered many new species in Lake Malawi and alsocaughtthe type specimen of Chilotilapia rhoadesii .
features
Chilotilapia rhoadesii can be 22.5 cm long, is relatively high-backed and flattened on the sides. Its body length is three times the length of the head and 2¼ times the body height. The head profile is steep, the snout is short, the mouth is terminal. The lips are noticeably thick, the teeth are irregularly arranged in five rows. There are eleven gill rakes on the lower section of the first gill arch . The cheeks have four rows of scales. The dorsal and anal fins of the males are pointed, in the females they are rounded. The tail stalk is longer than it is high.
Males are blue-green with a metallic shimmering head and orange-colored scales. Females are yellowish gray. Both sexes show two dark longitudinal bands, a narrower one lies directly below the dorsal fin, the second, wider one runs from the "neck" to the tail stalk. The bands are almost no longer visible in courting males, but blackish and always visible in females.
Way of life
Chilotilapia rhoadesii is a specialized snail- eater that occurs over muddy ground and feeds primarily on snails of the genera Melanoides and Lanistes . Like almost all cichlids in Lake Malawi, Chilotilapia rhoadesii is a mouthbrooder . The fish spawn in shallow sand pits.
literature
- George Albert Boulenger , 1908. Diagnoses of new fishes discovered by Capt. El Rhoades in Lake Nyassa. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (8) 2: 238-243.
- Erwin Schraml: Chilotilapia rhoadesii. In: Claus Schaefer, Torsten Schröer (Hrsg.): The large lexicon of aquaristics. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8001-7497-9 , p. 226.
Web links
- Chilotilapia rhoadesii on Fishbase.org (English)