The world's cichlid waters, from the inside out.
How a lake's temperature, pH, oxygen and clarity change with depth, place and season — and the cichlids that live within those conditions, every species mapped and described from primary research. The water body comes first.
Explore a water body
5 cichlid waters mapped so far — every one taken apart layer by layer. More of the world's cichlid lakes and rivers are on the way.
Lake Tanganyika
Second-deepest and second-oldest lake on Earth.
Lake Malawi
Also Lake Nyasa or Niassa: the southernmost of the great African rift lakes.
Lake Kivu
A Rift lake perched on the Congo–Nile divide and draining south into Lake Tanganyika via the Ruzizi River.
Lake Mweru
A large, shallow lake of the Luapula–Mweru system in the Congo basin, southwest of Tanganyika: about 5,120 km² in area, 131 km long and only ~7.
Lake Rukwa
A shallow, alkaline, endorheic lake in the Rukwa Rift of southwestern Tanzania, between Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi.
What's inside each lake
Most fish sites start with the fish. We start with the water — each lake is a first-class subject, taken apart layer by layer.
The water itself
How temperature, oxygen, pH and clarity stack up from the surface to the lightless deep — and shift from shore to shore and season to season.
Habitats & food web
Rocky reefs, sand floors and open water, and the algae, plankton and substrate beneath it all that feed everything above.
The life within
Every georeferenced species record in the lake, mapped — filter to a single fish to see exactly where it lives.