December 19, 2013 — Even for an imperiled species, the Mangarahara cichlid was on its last fins. The colorful fish was thought to have vanished from the wild, and only two individuals remain in captivity—both aging males. But thanks to a serendipitous chain of events, a small population was discovered in Madagascar last month, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) announced.
“This is a very exciting discovery,” says Michele Thieme, a conservation biologist with the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C., who didn’t participate in the discovery. “It’s rare to find a fish species that was feared extinct in the wild.”
The Mangarahara cichlid (Ptychochromis insolitus) is one of several species of cichlids native to Madagascar. They are interesting from an evolutionary perspective because they retain many ancestral traits of cichlid forbears, says Melanie Stiassny, an ichthyologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. When she revised the species’ taxonomy in 2006, she dubbed it “insolitus,” which means unusual, because of its fine-toothed scales and other features.
To survive in the wild, this cichlid needs clear, deep pools and swift, shallow water. But its habitat—the Mangarahara and Amboaboa river systems—are mostly dry now, their water diverted for rice and other crops. And deforestation has added to silt to streams that feed into the rivers. “This is clearly an endangered species,” Stiassny says. Previous searches had come up empty-handed, says Brian Zimmerman, the curator for fishes at ZSL’s aquarium at London Zoo. “We thought it was likely the fish was extinct in the wild.”
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