Tweddle’s Hap, Haplochromis tweddlei4 |
On the last leg of my 2015 trip to Tanzania,
I discovered the Kimboza Forest Reserve. In
2016 I revisited this piece of rainforest, which is a
hotspot of East African biodiversity but has a very
poorly equipped campground. Aquaristically it is not a
very spectacular venue—the fishes are limited to Am-
philius cf. uranoscopus, Kneria uluguru, one Chiloglanis
species, and a small gray Haplochromis.
We were standing by a stream that crossed the
street. Above the street, a pool had formed, and below
it the water flowed faster. We still had space in our
boxes, so there was no reason not to collect several
Haplochromis. On the other hand, I had already lost
some cichlids, despite short transport times and good
packaging. And what would I do with these fish? Few
seemed enthusiastic about them, even the colorful
species. The male we caught was 1.5 inches (4 cm)
long and already had egg spots—and we couldn’t
expect much more color. In the aquarium, these fish
rarely look more beautiful than they do in the wild. I
took them with me anyway, because I hadn’t kept any
Haplochromis for a long time, and at least my friend
Erwin Schraml would be pleased.
The fish survived the trip without problems. When
I got them home, I was in for a surprise: one of the
females was already carrying young fish in her mouth.
The male became more colorful by the day. When
displaying in front of the females, he was bright golden
and had a black eye band. This display reminded me
of South American Apistogramma. Although they were
in a fairly large tank (about 53 gallons/200 L) for their
small size, the male proved to be extremely aggressive
toward the females.Determining the species was difficult. Some
disagree with the use of the genus name. FishBase
uses Astatotilapia, while Catalog of Fishes (CAS)
uses Haplochromis until there is a comprehensive
revision. I agree with this and ignore the often-used
name Astatotilapia. A few species were considered,
such as H. paludinosus or H. bloyeti, but they did not
seem to fit. In the opinion of Professor George Turner
of Bangor University in Wales, who has studied the
area extensively, this is H. tweddlei—a species widely
prevalent in southern East Africa that is very similar to
H. bloyeti but much slimmer and genetically different.
The Kimboza Forest is likely the northern limit of H.
tweddlei, while the southernmost finds of H. bloyeti
were confirmed from the Wami River—less than 62AMAZONAS
American Black Mottled Crayfish,
Procambarus enoplosternumTOP: M. GRIMM; BOTTOM: H. BUCK