‘Large’-mouthed river creature — kept as aquarium pet — turns out to be new species
_2021Indermaur.JPG "Scientists found a “large”-mouthed river creature, sometimes kept as aquarium pet, in Zambia and discovered a new species, a study said.")
In a river of southern Africa, a “large”-mouthed creature swam along the rocks looking for its next meal. Something about the “slender” animal caught the attention of snorkelers — and for good reason.
It turned out to be a new species.
Scientists visited the Lufubu River in Zambia in 2015 and 2021 to survey aquatic life, according to a study published Dec. 30 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Fish Biology. The “river system is understudied yet remarkably biodiverse.”
During their visits, researchers noticed some “slender” bottom-dwelling fish, the study said. The team caught several of these intriguing fish, studied their looks and analyzed their DNA.
The Lufubu River fish turned out to be subtly but consistently distinct from other known species. Researchers realized they’d discovered a new species: Telmatochromis salzburgeri, or Salzburg’s cichlid.
Salzburg’s cichlids can reach about 2 inches long in the wild but “tend to grow much larger in captivity,” the study said. They have “large” heads, “large” mouths and “widely spaced teeth.”
The new species has been known among aquarium hobbyists for years and kept as a pet by “several dedicated hobbyists all over Europe and the United States,” study co-author Adrian Indermaur told McClatchy News via email. It is “also available at (online) fish retailers from time to time.”
Photos show the brown hue and “patchy pattern” of the new species. It has a “very prominent orange stripe” near its one fin.
Some Salzburg’s cichlids had a “distinctive dark brown to almost black” coloring, the study said. Researchers suspect this darker coloring “occurs in dominant territorial individuals and is only temporary,” but they don’t know for sure.
In the wild, the new species is “most abundant in deeper pools” but also lives in the shallows, the study said. It is a bottom-dweller, mainly feeding on “invertebrates gathered between rocks and from the sand,” and it “usually breeds in small caves excavated under and between larger rocks.”
Researchers said they named the new species after Walter Salzburger, “our friend, colleague, and mentor,” because of “his contributions in advancing the field of evolutionary biology and, in particular, cichlid research in Lake Tanganyika.” Lake Tanganyika’s water feeds the Lufubu River, where the species was found.
So far, the new species has only been found at a few locations in the Lufubu River in northern Zambia, the study said. Zambia is a landlocked country in southern Africa bordering Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
The new species was identified by its DNA, coloring, head shape, teeth and jaws, body shape and other subtle physical features, the study said.
The research team included Adrian Indermaur, Frederic Schedel and Fabrizia Ronco.
This story was originally published January 8, 2025 at 8:58 AM with the headline "‘Large’-mouthed river creature — kept as aquarium pet — turns out to be new species."
