Note the golden egg-spots on the anal fin of the male
Most of the fish you will see in the Aquarium are teleosts, including several species of cichlids. The Lake Malawi cichlids are a particularly interesting group, both because of their bright beautiful colors and because of their variety. The cichlids pictured here are members of a group of fish that live and breed in rock piles -- Mbuna. African cichlids have astonishing diversification -- genetic evidence suggests that over 500 species of cichlids in Lake Malawi have emerged in the last 2 million years. This rapid evolutionary change has been attributed both to the isolating effect of living in rockpiles and to changes associated with mating selection.
