4. Cichlids (sick-lids)
• Are a family of fish
• Found mainly in Africa and South
America
• A shit ton of species
5. Kenya
Lake Victoria
Tanzania
Uganda
Rwanda
Burundi
Zambia
Lake Malawi
Lake Tanganyika
The Great
Lakes of
Africa
Malawi
6. How many species?
Location # Fish Species
Hawaiian Islands ~600
Europe 215
245
Great Lakes of
North America
Cichlids of Africa >1300
All one family!
7. Who cares about cichlids?
• Fish farmers
(and fish eaters)
• Hobbyists
• Biologists
9. Jaws
• Cichlids have two sets of jaws!
– Just like Alien
• Inner jaws mash food
• Outer jaws have teeth adapted
to their diet
10. Fish food
• Plankton
• Aufwuchs : algae and the
microorganisms that live on it
• Sponges
– “like eating cardboard laced with indigestible fibers, ground glass in the form
of siliceous spicules, not to mention noxious chemicals”
• Other fish (piscivory)
• Other fishes’ scales (lepidophagy)
• Caviar (oophagy)
11. Parenting skills
• Parental care is rare in fishes,
but common in cichlids
• Some cichlids use their big
mouths to carry eggs and fry!
• Some guard their fry in nests,
chasing off predators
12. Hooking up
• Cichlids have a variety of different mating
systems
(1) Polygyny with Lekking
Lek- gathering of males,
competitve mating display
13. Hooking up (for life)
• (2) Monogamy (aw)
• Monogamy rare in
animals, esp. fish
• Why monogamy?
– Biparental care
– Secure a high quality mate
& territory