齐赫里迪·坦加尼

Lake Tanganyika, in eastern Africa, was formed relatively recently – about 10 million years ago. As a result of tectonic shifts, a huge rift (crack in the crust) appeared, which eventually filled with water from nearby rivers and became a lake. Along with water, the inhabitants of these rivers also got into it, one of them were Cichlids.

Over millions of years of evolution in a highly competitive habitat, many new endemic cichlid species have emerged, differing in all sorts of sizes and colors, as well as developing unique behavioral features, breeding strategies and offspring protection.

The typical reproduction of fish in rivers proved unacceptable for Lake Tanganyika. There is no way for fry to hide among the bare rocks, so some cichlids have developed an unusual way of protection that is not found anywhere else (with the exception of Lake Malawi). The incubation period and the first time of life, the fry spend in the mouth of their parents, from time to time leaving it for feeding, but in case of danger again hiding in their shelter.

The habitat of Lake Tanganyika cichlids has specific conditions (high water hardness, empty rocky landscapes, limited food supply) in which other fish cannot live, so they are usually kept in species tanks. However, this does not mean that they make high demands on their care, on the contrary, they are quite unpretentious fish.

用过滤器捡起鱼