Cichlids
Cichlids belong to the family Cichlidae; a highly diverse family that can be encountered in a wide range of different fresh and brackish environments. If you’re an aquarist, you’ve probably heard of species like Jack Dempsey, Kribensis, Oscar, and Discus – they’re all cichlids and a common sight in freshwater aquaria. Cichlids are native to Asia, Africa and the Americas. In the Americas, they are found as north as 30 degrees N in the United States, but the profusion of species is much greater in South- and Central America. Aquarists commonly divide cichlids into three main groups: African cichlids, Central and North American cichlids, and South American cichlids. There are over 2,000 described species of cichlid and this number is believed to increase significantly in the future as places such as the African Rift Valley lakes become more thoroughly explored by ichthyologists. Unfortunately, a lot of cichlid environments are under great stress from pollution, overfishing and the introduction of non-native species and many species might die out before we get a chance to find and describe them. Even though cichlids can look and act very differently form each other, they all share a few basic anatomical characteristics. The small intestine leaves the stomach on the left side (on all other known species of fish, it leaves the stomach on the right side) and cichlids have teeth in the upper and lower jaws as well as in the throat. Just like the ocean dwelling damselfish, cichlids only have one nostril instead of two.
