''Haplochromis piceatus'' is a species of
cichlid fish
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 else ...
to
Lake Victoria in East Africa.
Although listed as
vulnerable by the
IUCN, surveys since 2005 have failed to find it in its home lake and it is possibly
extinct in the wild.
Captive "safety populations" are maintained at several
public aquarium
A public aquarium (plural: ''public aquaria'' or ''public Water Zoo'') is the aquatic counterpart of a zoo, which houses living aquatic animal and plant specimens for public viewing. Most public aquariums feature tanks larger than those kept b ...
s.
[ Males are bluish-black with orange fins and females are grayish. The species generally resembles '' H. cinereus'' and '' H. macrops'', also from Lake Victoria, but it differs in having a longer jaw and a higher ]gill raker
Gill rakers in fish are bony or cartilaginous processes that project from the branchial arch (gill arch) and are involved with suspension feeding tiny prey. They are not to be confused with the gill filaments that compose the fleshy part of the ...
count.[ In the wild it was typically found over a muddy bottom at depths of about where it fed on ]zooplankton
Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...
and insect larvae, but captives will eat a wide range of standard aquarium fish food.[
]
References
piceatus
Fish described in 1969
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
{{Haplochromis-stub