The giant cichlid (''Boulengerochromis microlepis''), also known as the emperor cichlid, is a species of fish in the family

Cichlidae Cichlids are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Cichliformes. Cichlids were traditionally classed in a suborder, the Labroidei, along with the wrasses ( Labridae), in the order Perciformes, but molecular studies have contradicted thi ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Lake Tanganyika Lake Tanganyika () is an African Great Lake. It is the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second-deepest, in all cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. It is the world's longest freshwater lake. ...

in Africa.''Boulengerochromis microlepis''
FishBase (2006) Eds. Froese, R. and D. Pauly.
fishbase.org
version (07/2014).SeriouslyFish
Boulengerochromis microlepis.
Retrieved 6 April 2017. It is the only member of its

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Boulengerochromis'' and

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

Boulengerochromini.

Appearance, habitat and behavior

Males reach a length up to and females up to , possibly making it the largest extant species of cichlid; only the

speckled peacock bass ''Cichla temensis'', the speckled pavon, speckled peacock bass, painted pavon, or three-barred peacock bass, is a very large South American cichlid, and a prized food and game fish. Reaching up to in length and in weight, it is the largest cich ...

(''Cichla temensis'') of South America attains similar sizes as an adult. The giant cichlid is endemic to Lake Tanganyika, where it occurs in portions of the lake controlled by

Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...

, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

, and

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most cent ...

. Within this range it is a relatively common species found in coastal areas to depths of . Adults are chiefly

piscivorous A piscivore () is a carnivorous animal that eats primarily fish. The name ''piscivore'' is derived . Piscivore is equivalent to the Greek-derived word ichthyophage, both of which mean "fish eater". Fish were the diet of early tetrapod evoluti ...

while juveniles are

omnivore An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nutr ...

s; they also display habitat differences related to age, with adults living in small pelagic foraging groups when not spawning while juveniles use shallower, rock-strewn waters for the protective cover they provide. They are occasionally offered for sale as aquarium fish, but their enormous adult size makes them ill-suited for all but the largest private and public aquariums.

Taxonomy and etymology

The species was originally described as ''Tilapia microlepis'' by

George Albert Boulenger George Albert Boulenger (19 October 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botani ...

in 1899. Realizing that it was not a

tilapia Tilapia ( ) is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the coelotilapine, coptodonine, heterotilapine, oreochromine, pelmatolapiine, and tilapiine tribes (formerly all were "Tilapiini"), with the economically most ...

, the genus ''Boulengerochromis'' was coined in 1904 by

Jacques Pellegrin Jacques Pellegrin (12 June 1873, Paris – 12 August 1944) was a French zoologist. In Paris, he worked under zoologist Léon Vaillant (chair of reptiles and fishes) at the ''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle''. From 1897, Pellegrin served a ...

. The generic name of this species is a

compound noun A compound is a word composed of more than one free morpheme. The English language, like many others, uses compounds frequently. English compounds may be classified in several ways, such as the word classes or the semantic relationship of their ...

, made up of the

surname In some cultures, a surname, family name, or last name is the portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family, tribe or community. Practices vary by culture. The family name may be placed at either the start of a person's full name ...

Boulenger, in honour of the

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

born

herpetologist Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and rept ...

and

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish ( Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of Octobe ...

George Albert Boulenger (1858-1937), and the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word ''chromis'' which was used by

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

for a type of fish. This was probably the

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...

Sciaenidae Sciaenidae are a family of fish in the order Acanthuriformes. They are commonly called drums or croakers in reference to the repetitive throbbing or drumming sounds they make. The family consists of about 286 to 298 species in about 66 to 70 gen ...

and may be derived from the word ''chroemo'' which means "to neigh" in reference to the noise made by drums. This word was applied to a number of percomorph fishes, such as

damselfish Damselfish are those within the subfamilies Abudefdufinae, Chrominae, Lepidozyginae, Pomacentrinae, and Stegastenae within the family Pomacentridae. Most species within this group are relatively small, with the largest species being about 30 ...

cardinalfish Cardinalfishes are a family, Apogonidae, of ray-finned fishes found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans; they are chiefly marine, but some species are found in brackish water and a few (notably '' Glossamia'') are found in fresh water. A ...

dottyback The dottybacks are a family, Pseudochromidae, of fishes which were formerly classified in the order Perciformes, but this has been revised and the family is regarded as of uncertain affinities, or ''incertae sedis'' within the Ovalentaria, a cl ...

wrasse The wrasses are a family, Labridae, of marine fish, many of which are brightly colored. The family is large and diverse, with over 600 species in 81 genera, which are divided into 9 subgroups or tribes. They are typically small, most of them le ...

s and cichilds, by ichthyologists as these were thought to be closely related.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q133987

giant cichlid The giant cichlid (''Boulengerochromis microlepis''), also known as the emperor cichlid, is a species of fish in the family Cichlidae, endemic to Lake Tanganyika in Africa.Fish of Lake Tanganyika