Tropheops

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Tropheops
Tropheops sp., Female

Tropheops sp., Female

Systematics
Ovalentaria
Order : Cichliformes
Family : Cichlids (Cichlidae)
Subfamily : Pseudocrenilabrinae
Tribe : Haplochromini
Genre : Tropheops
Scientific name
Tropheops
Trewavas , 1984

Tropheops is a genus of African cichlids (Cichlidae). All species of the genus live endemically in Lake Malawi in East Africa and belong to thembuna that are boundto the biotope of the rocky coasts .

features

Tropheops species are 6.5 to 14 cm long and generally resemble the closely related genus Pseudotropheus , which was previously assumed to be the subgenus of Tropheops . They differ from Pseudotropheus , however, by their steeply rising forehead line and a special cutting technique in which the growth is torn off with an upward and sideways head movement.

All Tropheops species are ovophilic mouthbrooders .

species

The genus Tropheops includes eleven described and probably still numerous previously undescribed species, which hardly differ morphologically and can only be differentiated based on their color. However, since up to five sympatric tropheops forms occur in some places , one can assume that these are species and not just color forms of one species.

Tropheops tropheops , the type species

literature

  • Andreas Spreinat: Lake Malawi cichlids from Tanzania. Unitext Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-926142-42-1 .
  • Erwin Schraml: Pseudotropheus […]. In: Claus Schaefer, Torsten Schröer (Ed.) The large lexicon of aquaristics. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8001-7497-9 , pp. 831-834.

Web links

Commons : Tropheops  - collection of images, videos and audio files