Cyathochromis obliquidens
| Cyathochromis obliquidens | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Cyathochromis | ||||||||||||
| Trewavas , 1935 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Cyathochromis obliquidens | ||||||||||||
| Trewavas, 1935 |
Cyathochromis obliquidens is a cichlid species that is endemic to the East African Lake Malawi .
features
Cyathochromis obliquidens becomes 15 cm long and has the typical shape of a mbuna . Males are blue, with a yellow back and often a yellow chest. Females and juveniles are gray-yellowish and show a dark longitudinal stripe in the middle of the body and a row of dots in the upper half of the body. Typical for the species and the reason for the position in an independent genus is the dentition, which can be seen with the naked eye. The teeth are very long-handled and have spoon-like tips.
Way of life
Cyathochromis obliquidens lives in shallow water, usually at depths of one to two meters. It occurs mainly in the transition zone between rock and sand biotopes over mixed subsoil and often also between Vallisneria or other vegetation. Males are true to location and territorial , females live in small groups or individually. Cyathochromis obliquidens feeds primarily on growth that it scrapes off plant leaves, as well as small invertebrates.
Systematics
Genus and species were in 1935 by the British ichthyologist Ethelwynn Trewavas described . Although the species occurs more in sandy zones near the shores of Lake Malawi, it is not closely related to other cichlids found there, but belongs to the clade of rock-dwelling cichlids, the so-called mbuna .
literature
- Andreas Spreinat: Lake Malawi cichlids from Tanzania. Dähne Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-9261-4242-1
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christopher Darrin Hulsey, Jimmy Zheng, Brant C. Faircloth, Axel Meyer , Michael E. Alfaro: Phylogenomic analysis of Lake Malawi cichlid fishes: Further evidence that the three-stage model of diversification does not fit. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, June 2017, doi: 10.1016 / j.ympev.2017.05.027
Web links
- Cyathochromis obliquidens on Fishbase.org (English)