Oreochromis squamipinnis

Appearance

The lepidophagous cichlid Corematodus shiranus is an aggressive mimic of chambo in both color pattern and swimming mode. It is, therefore, able to approach unsuspecting schools of O. Squamipinnis and rapidly take a mouthful of scales or fin.

This species can reach a standard length of 36 cm (14 in). The breeding males in this subgenus have long genital tassels (a 17 cm or 6.7 in long O. Squamipinnis had tassels that were 9 cm or 3.5 in), that somewhat resemble fish eggs.

Range and habitat

Oreochromis squamipinnis is a critically endangered species of cichlid fish that is endemic to Lake Malawi, Lake Malombe and Shire River in East Africa, where found in a wide range of habitats, but especially in shallow water. This species is important to local commercial fisheries and can also be found in the aquarium trade, but it has declined drastically due to overfishing.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Breeding

During breeding, the female attempts to pick them up with her mouth and this helps the male in fertilizing the female's eggs, already in her mouth.

In crisis

Oreochromis squamipinnis 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 squamipinnis, Wikidata item Q1940926. 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.