Abactochromis labrosus

Abactochromis labrosus, adult males ( 11.5 cm standard length ). The soft, fleshy lips are in the living animal on the head. Here they are pulled forward in order to show its length.

Abactochromis labrosus is an endemic cichlid from the East African Lake Malawi. He lives there on rocky shores from the water surface to depths of 30 meters and is rare.

Features

Abactochromis labrosus is twelve inches long and has a laterally strongly flattened body. The fish is dark brown to almost black. There is also an orange-brown morph. On the anal fin of the males are 2 to 4 yellow eggspots. Younger fish below 8-9 cm body length are light gray with 8-9 dark gray vertical stripes on the sides. Note the greatly enlarged, very touch sensitive lips. They are often more brightly colored than the rest of the body. In contrast to the lips of all other thick-lipped Malawiseebuntbarsche, the lips of Abactochromis labrosus by a central furrow in a right and a left lobe are divided. The number of vertebrae is 28 to 29, which is smaller than all other thick-lipped Malawiseebuntbarschen. The large head makes for specimens that are larger than 5 cm, 40% of the standard length of. The lateral line is interrupted. It runs from the front to the middle of the body in the upper half of the body parallel to the back line, in the last third of the body two scale rows deep along the midline. The number of gill rakers is 13; they are unbranched.

Way of life

Abactochromis labrosus lives in rocky habitats and, with its narrow body adapted to search in narrow crevices for food. The fish are solitary and aggressive towards conspecifics. Like almost all cichlids of Lake Malawi are mouth brooders ovophile. The female carries the eggs for about 24 days until hatching of the boys in his mouth around with you. The number of eggs is 20 to 45 after the first free-swimming young fish no longer come back into the mouth of the mother.

System

Abactochromis labrosus the genus Melanochromis was assigned by the British ichthyologist Ethelwynn Trewavas first. However, since the type is missing the typical striations of the genus and they can also be assigned to any other species of Lake Malawi, it was put into the new monotypic genus Abactochromis in 2010.

Etymology

The genus name comes from Latin and is made up of " abactus " and " chromis " together. " Abactus " means driven, distributed and refers to the solitary (apparently non-territorial ) life of the fish and on the spin-off from the genus Melanochromis. Chromis is a genus of reef fishes in the formerly cichlids were asked. The Style epithet labrosus derives from " labium ", Latin for lip. In the language of the indigenous Tonga Nyamlepetu the fish is called.

Synonyms

• Melanochromis labrosus Trewavas, 1935
• Haplochromis labrosus Loiselle, 1978; Merritt, 1978; Adler, 1979
• Cyrtocara LabROSA Mayland, 1982