Brass mouthbrooders
| Brass mouthbrooders | ||||||||||||
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Wild caught from Lake Chilingali near Nkhotakota in Malawi . |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Pseudocrenilabrus philander | ||||||||||||
| ( Weber , 1897) |
The brass mouthbrooder ( Pseudocrenilabrus philander , syn .: Haplochromis philander ( Latin : "philos" = friend; "andros" = human)) is an African cichlid that is widespread in southern Africa from the Orange and southern KwaZulu-Natal northwards to occurs in the southern Congo Basin and Lake Malawi .
features
Male brass mouthbrooders reach a maximum length of 13 cm, females stay a little smaller. It is similar to the small mouthbrooder ( P. multicolor ) but has a higher back and grows larger. The body is predominantly shiny gold, bronze or copper colored. The males' throats and belly are usually tender to deep reddish. The lower lip is blue. The neck and lower back of the body are often bluish in color. Indistinct stripes on the sides of the body can be more or less clearly visible or absent. The dorsal fin is generally dark, often with reddish or blue bands. The soft rayed areas of the dorsal and anal fin are dotted blue, as is the transparent, rounded caudal fin. The various subspecies and local populations can, however, also have different color patterns. The shape from the Namibian Otjikotosee is z. B. more bluish, specimens from the area of Beira (Mozambique) more yellowish. Both are only 8 cm long.
- Fin formula : Dorsal (XIII) -XIV / 9–11, Anale III / 8–10.
- Scale formula : mLR 26–28.
Way of life
The brass mouthbrooder occurs in a variety of habitats, from flowing waters, over lakes, also in very isolated areas, such as in the Otjikoto lake in Namibia , and colonizes mainly areas overgrown with plants. It feeds on insects, small crustaceans and small fish or their brood.
It reproduces from early spring to late summer. At spawning time, the males form territory and create a shallow pit in the bottom of the water, in which the partners spawn. The up to 100 eggs are then taken into the mouth by the female .
Subspecies
A distinction is made between three subspecies, which in turn can be divided into a total of 10 to 15 local populations:
- Pseudocrenilabrus philander dispersus (Trewavas, 1936), Otjikoto Lake in Namibia.
- Pseudocrenilabrus philander luebberti (Hilgendorf, 1902), surroundings of Otavi in Namibia.
- Pseudocrenilabrus philander philander (Weber, 1897), southeastern Africa.
The assignment to the subspecies is considered difficult. It is unclear whether they or some of the local populations need to be considered as distinct species.
literature
- Günther Sterba : The world's freshwater fish. 2nd Edition. Urania, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-332-00109-4 .
- Cyprian Katongo, Stephan Koblmüller, Nina Duftner, Lawrence Makasa, Christian Sturmbauer: Phylogeography and speciation in the Pseudocrenilabrus philander species complex in Zambian Rivers. Hydrobiologia (2005) 542: 221-233, DOI: 10.1007 / s10750-004-1389-x PDF
- Anton Lamboj : Pseudocrenilabrus philander. In: Claus Schaefer, Torsten Schröer (Hrsg.): The large lexicon of aquaristics. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8001-7497-9 , p. 820.
Web links
- Pseudocrenilabrus philander on Fishbase.org (English)