Chelaethiops minutus

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Taxonomy [top]

Kingdom	Phylum	Class	Order	Family
ANIMALIA	CHORDATA	ACTINOPTERYGII	CYPRINIFORMES	CYPRINIDAE

Scientific Name:	Chelaethiops minutus
Species Authority:	(Boulenger, 1906)

Assessment Information [top]

Red List Category & Criteria:	Least Concern     ver 3.1
Year Published:	2006
Assessor/s:	Bigirimana, C.
Reviewer/s:	Snoeks, J. (Freshwater Fish Red List Authority) & Darwall, W. (Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment Programme)
Justification: Commonly caught and widespread throughout Lake Tanganyika. No major widespread threats.

Geographic Range [top]

Range Description:	Endemic to Lake Tanganyika.
Countries:	Native: Burundi; Congo, The Democratic Republic of the; Tanzania, United Republic of; Zambia
Range Map:	Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.

Population [top]

Population:	The population size is not known.
Population Trend:	Unknown

Habitat and Ecology [top]

Habitat and Ecology:

Chelaethiops minutus is the only one of the 34 cyprinids known from the Tanganyika basin which can be said to live in deep water. Its juvenile stages (up to a length of about 75 mm) occupy the littoral zone. Poll found that adults live in the pelagic zone and reach 106 mm. Adults are commonly caught together with clupeids and under fishing lamps they are readily distinguishable from each other by their behaviour. The clupeids form dense schools a metre or so below the surface whereas Chelaethiops minutus swim as individuals just below the surface and do not school. C. minutus is specialized in surface feeding on insects that have been carried offshore by wind. Although many cyprinid species occur within the basin, and 10 are endemic, only C. minutus has entered the lake proper from the littoral habitat. All the other cyprinids in the basin have retained the riverine habitats although nine of them have also been recorded in the lake littoral. It seems a reasonable hypothesis that C. minutus, having developed the ability to exploit insect at the surface as its major food, has then extended its range into the open lake as the only specialist in that trophic niche.

Systems:

Freshwater

Threats [top]

Major Threat(s):

Water pollution.

Conservation Actions [top]

Conservation Actions:

There are no conservation measures in place for this species.

Bibliography [top]

Coulter, G.W. 1991. Lake Tanganyika and its life. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Daget, J., Gosse, J.-P. and Thys van den Audenaerde, D.F.E. (eds). 1984. Check-list of the Freshwater Fishes of Africa (CLOFFA I). pp. 93–94 ORSTOM, Paris, France and MRAC, Tervuren, Belgium. IUCN. 2006. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. www.iucnredlist.org. Downloaded on 04 May 2006.