The Cichlid Fishes

Labeotropheus fueleborni

I wrote this book primarily for the educated lay person, young and old, and for scientists in other fields. The audience I had in mind is the kind of person who reads magazines like Natural History or Scientific American. I imagined you and I were having a conversation and that you wanted to learn interesting things about cichlids, the sorts of things that so enthralled me as I learned about them. I also wanted to provide colleagues with access to the extensive literature on cichlids.

The inquisitive lay person should find the writing relatively easy to follow. The hard-core scientist may fret over the occasionally whimsical approach; sorry for that. Examples of the capricious touch are the chapter titles, which I ought to explain here. When I want to ascertain the nature of a book, the first thing I do is look at the chapter headings. I had fun thinking up chapters, but they may not always be clear to you ­ too whimsical, perhaps ­ so I provide here the chapter headings and their translations. The book also has a short glossary and an index.

Let me know if you find errors in the book.

The Cichlid Fishes is available from the publisher, Perseus Books (http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com), from Amazon.Com (http://www.amazon.com), Barnes and Noble (http://www.barnesandnoble.com), Borders.Com (http://www.borders.com) and from many other book dealers.

THE CICHLID FISHES: NATURE'S GRAND EXPERIMENT IN EVOLUTION

Contents

1.	So, What Is A Cichlid?	The diversity of fishes and how they relate to one another, with cichlids placed into the scheme of things and characterized.
2.	Jaws Two	The multiplicity of cichlid diets, from eating plants to devouring other cichlids, followed by a description of how the outer jaws collaborate with the uniquely dexterous throat jaws.
3.	Plastic Sex	When, why and how fishes change sex as adults, with some examples from cichlid fishes.
4.	Mating Games	The theoretical issue of conflict between the sexes and how that applies to cichlids, plus a classification of their many mating systems.
5.	Oh Yea, Put Up Your Fins	When, why and how cichlids fight.
6.	Cichlid Speak	How cichlids communicate, including dynamic color signals, displays and sounds.
7.	Beauty is Only Fin Deep	In these cichlid mating systems, males and females don’t get to know one another. They meet briefly, spawn, and part. How do females choose males, and why should they care?
8.	Mating Gets Personal	The basic mating system in cichlids is monogamy, in which males and females carefully choose one another and form enduring personal bonds.
9.	How Gametes Meet	How sperm reach eggs varies among mating systems. One of the most challenging situations arises when the female takes her spawned eggs into her mouth before they are fertilized.
10.	Family Plan	Cichlids universally care for their offspring but to remarkably different degrees and ways. Some carry eggs in their mouths and some guide schools of young for up to several months, and the young of yet others eat the surface of their parents.
11.	Family Life Gets Complicated	Young are placed up for adoption, some catfish parasitize parents, other catfish become baby sitters. Rarely, young cichlids stay home to help out around the house.
12.	Cichlid Factories	The massive and rapid production of hundreds of species in the Great Lakes of Africa has stunned evolutionary biologists. How have cichlids done that?
13.	Fish At Risk	All fisheries in the world are over exploited, and fish farming — aquaculture — brings its own problem. Cichlids are endangered in many places, especially in Lake Victoria where hundreds of species may already have been lost.

Pre-Reviews

These are from the comments on the dust jacket of the book, though one of them is a longer version.

"The cichlid fishes are a natural treasure, a priceless gift to Darwinists. They have made of Africa's great lakes exhibition tanks of high speed evolution. The cichlid species of these three lakes outnumber the combined mammal and bird faunas of the whole of North America. In Lake Victoria, some 500 new species have arisen in a mere 12,400 years (that's approximately the time since humans first discovered agriculture), reinventing the same range of trades as evolved geological ages ago in the much older Lake Tanganyika. The cichlid fishes are almost too good to be true, and nobody is better qualified to show them to us than George Barlow. But he does more than tell us about his beloved fishes. He makes his fishes tell us about ourselves."

— Richard Dawkins, Oxford University

"George Barlow knows his cichlids, and even better, he knows how to convey his enthusiasm for the biology of this remarkable group of animals. How refreshing in this era of the high-tech human genome hullabaloo to have someone explain things like how a cichlid jaw works, and why certain male cichlids in search of mates collect snail shells while others build miniature 'volcanoes' in the bottom of a lake. Read this fine natural history and you will come to share Barlow's affection for these delightfully diverse fish."

— John Alcock, Arizona State University

"A wonderful book. Written with a bubbling enthusiasm that will capture everyone from fish hobbyists to theoretical biologists, it is extraordinarily easy to read, very funny (I laughed out loud throughout), and at the same time manages to convey important contemporary ideas in evolutionary biology in a completely understandable way."

— Marian Stamp Dawkins, Oxford University

"Can social status really determine sex? At a college fraternity party, are cichlids more dangerous than goldfish? Barlow's wonderful book shows us just how much we can learn from these amazing creatures. It will fascinate students and lay readers alike."

— Peter Klopfer, Duke University

"This is the most significant book on cichlids ever published. The marvel is that the book is so wondrously written that it can be read with nearly equal compensation by professional biologists and inquisitive layman alike. It is the book cichlid hobbyists have had in their dreams. At last, it is a reality."

— Richard Stratton, writer and aquarist.

From the Critics

Just the concluding statements from the first reviews:

From Library Journal — "This should be the classic in the field for a long time. Recommended for academic and public libraries."

— Jean E. Crampon, Univ. of Southern California Library

From Science — "The Cichlid Fishes is a lively read in natural history for general readers and professionals alike. Behaviorists, ichthyologists, and evolutionary biologists will find, for different reasons, Barlow's book a stimulating and controversial work that deserves discussion and scrutiny."

— Amy McCune, Cornell University

From Natural History — "In sum, The Cichlid Fishes is a marvelous narrative about an extraordinary family of creatures. Barlow's fertile synthesis belongs in the pantheon of natural history classics: G.E. Hutchinson's famous essay 'The Cream in the Gooseberry Fool,' Konrad Lorenz's 'King Solomon's Ring,' Niko Tinbergen's 'Curious Naturalist,' and Howard Ensign Evans's 'Life on a Little-Known Planet.'"

— Les Kaufman, Boston University