Cyprichromis leptosoma
| Cyprichromis leptosoma | ||||||||||||
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Cyprichromis leptosoma |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Cyprichromis leptosoma | ||||||||||||
| ( Boulenger , 1898) |
Cyprichromis leptosoma is a species of African cichlid . It is endemic to Lake Tanganyika , where it occurs exclusively in the southern part of the lake. Here the animals live in the open water near the rocky littoral at depths of up to 80 m and form swarms that can comprise several hundred individuals.
The physique, as in all species of the genus, is slender and elongated. The animals reach a length of up to 11 cm, the basic color of the body is brown-gray. The fins of the females are inconspicuous, while the males are beautifully colored. There are different color variants with lemon-yellow, blue-purple or orange caudal fins.
C. leptosoma are maternal mouthbrooders . They spawn in open water, i.e. not on the sediment or stone surfaces and are therefore, in contrast to various other mouth-brooding cichlids of Lake Tanganyika, not potential victims of brood parasitism by the cuckoo's whiskered catfish . A clutch usually consists of no more than ten whitish-yellow eggs with a diameter of 2 mm. The mating takes place in open water. Immediately after laying an egg, the female takes it in her mouth, only here is it fertilized. During the roughly three-week breeding season, the female rarely consumes food. After this time, the 2 cm large fry are released from the mouth and no longer cared for.
Their diet consists mainly of zooplankton . As an adaptation to this food source, C. leptosoma has a protruding mouth.
Because of the splendid coloring of the males, C. leptosoma are popular aquarium fish , but as schooling fish they love to swim, they need a large tank. The species was first introduced live to Europe in the mid-1970s. Since the first introduced specimens belonged exclusively to the yellow-finned color variant, the species was called lemon tail, meanwhile it is also known as the blue herring cichlid or Kärpflingscichlid.
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- Hans-Joachim Herrmann: The cichlids of the old world - Tanganyika lake . Ulmer, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-8001-7940-7 .
- Cyprichromis leptosoma on Fishbase.org (English)
- IUCN
