Haplo Fish

Astatotilapia is a genus of small freshwater fish in the family Cichlidae found in Eastern and Northern Africa, with a single species, A. flaviijosephi, in Western Asia (the only non-African haplochromine).^[1] Many species have been moved between this genus and Haplochromis, and while some consensus has been reached in recent years, their mutual delimitation is still far from settled.^[2] Based on mtDNA, Astatotilapia as currently defined is polyphyletic.^[3]

Species

There are currently 10 recognized species in this genus:^[2]

• Astatotilapia bloyeti (Sauvage, 1883) (Bloyet's haplo)
• Astatotilapia burtoni (Günther, 1894)
• Astatotilapia calliptera (Günther, 1894) (Eastern happy)
• Astatotilapia desfontainii (Lacépède, 1802)^[4]
• Astatotilapia flaviijosephi (Lortet, 1883) (Jordan mouthbrooder)
• Astatotilapia paludinosa Greenwood, 1980
• Astatotilapia stappersii (Poll, 1943)
• Astatotilapia swynnertoni (Boulenger, 1907)
• Astatotilapia tchadensis Trape, 2016^[4]
• Astatotilapia tweddlei P. B. N. Jackson, 1985

There are a few possibly undescribed species in the genus,^[3] such as:

• Astatotilapia sp. 'dwarf bigeye scraper'
• Astatotilapia sp. 'shovelmouth'

Names brought to synonymy

• Astatotilapia elegans (Trewavas, 1933), a synonym for Haplochromis elegans

References