Nimbochromis venustus
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Nimbochromis venustus | ||||||||||||
| ( Boulenger , 1908) |
Nimbochromis venustus ( Syn .: Haplochromis venustus ), also known in German as gold - forehead or peacock-mouth breeder , is a cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi and widespread there.
features
Nimbochromis venustus reaches a maximum length of 25 cm (females stay smaller) and is one of the larger representatives of its genus. Its body height reaches 38.1 to 40.9% of the standard length , the head length is 32 to 33.8% of the standard length, the length of the lower jaw reaches 36.3 to 40.8% of the head length. The base of the dorsal fin occupies 53.3 to 57.7% of the standard length. The mouth is terminal, sloping and wide. Females are sandy yellow to ivory in color and have large, olive to fawn brown spots that can assume a rhombic shape. The males show these spots only indistinctly or not at all. Instead, their flanks are more or less monochrome curry to lemon yellow, the head an intense blue. A golden yellow stripe extends from the upper lip over the nose and forehead region to the outer areas of the dorsal fin. The base of the dorsal fin is bluish. Young fish resemble the females.
- Fins formula : dorsal XVI – XVII / 10–12, anals III / 9–10.
- Dandruff formula : mLR 32–35, SL 19–23 / 15–16.
Way of life
Nimbochromis venustus lives mainly in the sand littoral of Lake Malawi and in the Vallisnerienwiesen , juvenile fish also in shallow water near rocks, adult animals in depths of less than ten meters. The fish mainly feed on smaller fish, as well as invertebrates. Young fish have been observed to half buried themselves in the sand to camouflage themselves. Like almost all Malawi cichlids, Nimbochromis venustus is a mouthbrooder . The females take the eggs and the over 100 young fish in their mouths. The males are polygamous .
literature
- Horst Linke, Wolfgang Staeck: African cichlids, cichlids from East Africa. P. 54, Tetra Verlag, 1981, ISBN 3-8974-5103-4 .
- Erwin Schraml: Nimbochromis venustus. In: Claus Schaefer, Torsten Schröer (Hrsg.): The large lexicon of aquaristics. 2 volumes. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8001-7497-9 , p. 707.
- Günther Sterba : The world's freshwater fish. 2nd Edition. Urania, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-332-00109-4 .
Web links
- Nimbochromis venustus on Fishbase.org (English)
- Nimbochromis venustus inthe IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.1. Posted by: Kazembe, J., Makocho, P. & Mailosi, A., 2006. Retrieved October 16, 2013.