The Fishes of the Lake Rukwa Drainage

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Language: English with trilingual summary in English, French, and Geman

The Lake Rukwa drainage is situated in an interior basin which in large parts is a section of the East African Rift Valley. The present paper is the result of studies of museum holdings and of the author's own collections resulting from 7 collecting trips, in the course of which about 2,500 fish were caught and preserved from 85 localities, plus approximately 300 specimens which were caught alive and taken to Germany. In addition, some research was done on the ecology of the fishes in the field.

The aim was to make an inventory of the fishes of the Lake Rukwa drainage and to properly identify them by using the type specimens of each species as reference material. The types of all species, and in many cases those of related species as well, were therefore studied in detail and their status evaluated. Several types which were thought to be lost were successfully traced. By these means, the type specimens of various East African fishes were properly defined for the first time and some lectotypes were designated. The material from the author's collections from Lake Rukwa showed that the number of species in that drainage could be increased to at least 64. Those species are described in detail and in most cases a photo of the live fish is provided together with a photo of the name bearing type.

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