Critically Endangered
Oreochromis lidole
something about fish
Oreochromis lidole is a ray-finned fish — something about fish, recorded as Critically Endangered.
The ray-finned fish
Oreochromis lidole is a ray-finned fish — something about fish.
Range and habitat
Oreochromis lidole has been recorded from throughout Lake Malawi, where it tends to live in deeper, less muddy habitats than related chambo species, although they are often found together in the same fisherman's catch, suggesting they may shoal together. Juveniles and brooding females tend to be found in shallower, muddier water, in places such as Lake Malombe. The species was reportedly most common in the productive southern arms of the lake, and rare off muddy or rocky coasts.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
When juveniles have absorbed their yolk sacs, they are released to forage independently, under the female's guard, but are allowed to return to their mother's mouth when danger threatens. Breeding mainly occurs during the hot season from October to January, when males gather in deep water (mainly 20–45 m (66–148 ft)) off clean, steeply shelving beaches to dig huge craters (1–3 m (3 ft 3 in – 9 ft 10 in) in diameter) in that courtship and spawning takes place.
Females often migrate to more productive turbid waters to release their young, in areas such as Lake Malombe.
In crisis
It is important in fisheries, but has drastically declined. It may already be extinct. A study by Turner counted about all chambo species declined drastically in the 1990s. Despite hundreds of chambo being caught every day, because no one has identified these chambo as specifically O. Lidole as of 2016, the IUCN stated that no one knows for sure if anyone has seen O. Lidole since Turner last identified a fish as such in 1992, and thus declared that it may be extinct for all anyone knows.
Oreochromis lidole is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Oreochromis lidole, Wikidata item Q1956228. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
