The giant cichlid (''Boulengerochromis microlepis''), also known as the emperor cichlid, is a species of fish in the family
Cichlidae
Cichlids ()
are a large, diverse, and widespread family of percomorph fish in the family Cichlidae, order Cichliformes. At least 1,760 species have been scientifically described, making it one of the largest vertebrate families, with on ...
,
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
to
Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika ( ; ) is an African Great Lakes, African Great Lake. It is the world's List of lakes by volume, second-largest freshwater lake by volume and the List of lakes by depth, second deepest, in both cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. ...
in Africa.
[''Boulengerochromis microlepis'']
FishBase (2006) Eds. Froese, R. and D. Pauly.
fishbase.org
version (07/2014).[SeriouslyFish]
Boulengerochromis microlepis.
Retrieved 6 April 2017. It is the only member of its
genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
''Boulengerochromis'' and
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...
Boulengerochromini.
Appearance, habitat and behavior
Males reach a length up to and females up to , possibly making it the largest extant species of cichlid; only the
speckled peacock bass
''Cichla temensis'', the speckled peacock bass, painted pavon, royal pavon, speckled pavon, three-barred peacock bass, or striped tucunare, is a very large Cichlinae, South American cichlid. Reaching nearly in length, it is the largest cichlid ...
(''Cichla temensis'') of South America attains similar sizes as an adult.
The giant cichlid is endemic to Lake Tanganyika, where it occurs in portions of the lake controlled by
Burundi
Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...
, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
,
Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
, and
Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
.
Within this range it is a relatively common species found in coastal areas to depths of .
Adults are chiefly
piscivorous
A piscivore () is a carnivorous animal that primarily eats fish. Fish were the diet of early tetrapod evolution (via water-bound amphibians during the Devonian period); insectivory came next; then in time, the more terrestrially adapted rept ...
while juveniles are
omnivore
An omnivore () is an animal that regularly consumes significant quantities of both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize t ...
s; they also display habitat differences related to age, with adults living in small pelagic foraging groups when not spawning while juveniles use shallower, rock-strewn waters for the protective cover they provide.
[ They are occasionally offered for sale as aquarium fish, but their enormous adult size makes them ill-suited for all but the largest private and public aquariums.]
Taxonomy and etymology
The species was originally described as ''Tilapia microlepis'' by George Albert Boulenger
George Albert Boulenger (19 October 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botani ...
in 1899. Realizing that it was not a tilapia
Tilapia ( ) is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the coelotilapine, coptodonine, heterotilapine, oreochromine, pelmatolapiine, and tilapiine tribes (formerly all were "Tilapiini"), with the economically mos ...
, the genus ''Boulengerochromis'' was coined in 1904 by Jacques Pellegrin
Jacques Pellegrin (12 June 1873 – 12 August 1944) was a French zoology, zoologist.
Biography
Pellegrin was born in Paris on 12 June 1873. He worked under zoologist Léon Vaillant (chair of reptiles and fishes) at the ''Muséum national d'hi ...
.
The generic name of this species is a compound noun
A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. The English language, like many others, uses compounds frequently. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their ...
, made up of the surname
In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...
Boulenger, in honour of the Belgian born herpetologist
Herpetology (from Ancient Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (Gymnophiona)) and reptiles (in ...
and ichthyologist
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...
George Albert Boulenger (1858-1937), and the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
word ''chromis'' which was used by Aristotle
Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
for a type of fish. This was probably the drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...
Sciaenidae
Sciaenidae is a family (biology), family of ray-finned fishes belonging to the Order (biology), order Acanthuriformes. They are commonly called drums or croakers in reference to the repetitive throbbing or drumming sounds they make. The family co ...
and may be derived from the word ''chroemo'' which means "to neigh" in reference to the noise made by drums. This word was applied to a number of percomorph fishes, such as damselfish
Damselfish are those fish within the subfamilies Abudefdufinae, Chrominae, Lepidozyginae, Pomacentrinae, and Stegastinae within the family Pomacentridae.
Most species within this group are relatively small, although the four largest speci ...
, cardinalfish
Cardinalfishes are a family, Apogonidae, of ray-finned fishes found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans; they are chiefly marine, but some species are found in brackish water and a few (notably '' Glossamia'') are found in fresh water. A ...
, dottybacks, wrasse
The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine ray-finned fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 81 genera, which are divided into nine subgroups or tribes.
They are typically small, ...
s and cichilds, by ichthyologists as these were thought to be closely related.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q133987