African Cichlids
While numbers decline in their native Africa, cichlids flourish at Regenstein African Journey.

“The first fishes from Lake Nyassa (Lake Malawi) to reach Western science were collected by Dr. John Kirk, the naturalist with David Livingstone’s second expedition (Africa, 1858-1864). Kirk correctly observed, ‘The fishes of the lake are almost all of species peculiar [i.e., not found elsewhere].’”

While that nugget of news comes from malawicichlids.com, here’s an update
from Lincoln Park Zoo: You can watch several of these “species peculiar”
swimming at Regenstein African Journey. When the exhibit opened a year ago, 300 cichlids (pronounced SICK-lids) of various hues took up residence. The population has grown to about 1,000, says animal keeper Anthony Nielsen. Some 1,300 species of cichlids live in Africa’s three freshwater rift lakes, Malawi, Victoria and Tanganyika. The zoo’s Lake Malawi species are mouthbreeders, meaning that the female lays eggs and then scoops them up in her mouth, where they remain, often until hatching. Nielsen says that sometimes you’ll see a fish doing a “body shake. They’re very territorial. They’ll shake their fins and tails to tell other fish to stay away.”

The warning dance must be effective, because cichlids know a little something about survival. Some species date back 150 million years.