Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria

Lake Victoria, with its 68,000 km² extent (about the size of Bavaria), is one of the largest lakes in the world. In contrast to Lake Malawi or Lake Tanganyika, which lies approximately south of it, the lake is only 82 m deep.
Lake Victoria, with its 68,000 km² extent (about the size of Bavaria), is one of the largest lakes in the world. In contrast to Lake Malawi or Lake Tanganyika, which lies approximately south of it, the lake is only 82 m deep.
In its history of development, it has changed its shape several times and 12000 years ago it was even completely dried up. Until today or better until the end of the last century, more than 600 species of cichlids have been found in the lake.
This means that the developmental history of living things, which are generally estimated at hundreds of thousands to millions of years, can be much faster under certain circumstances.
Therefore, Lake Victoria is extremely interesting for scientists. And some universities have tackled this issue and have been researching the lake and its institutes since the 1980s. This includes the University of Leiden / NL.
It is mainly thanks to her that we aquarists came to the cichlids from the lake. For some of the animals that came to the university for research purposes were, if they were no longer needed, made available to aquarists in the hope that they will remain as aquarium populations.
Me (Axel Böhner) even animals were given with the proviso that I would have to give them back, if the university needed them again. The university attached great importance to a good cooperation with the aquarists.
Commercial imports from the lake were and are scarce. On the one hand, it is very difficult to distinguish the females of different species, on the other hand, the demand is so low that for a commercial enterprise, the catch is not interesting.
Pictures from Lake Victoria were taken from us
© Oliver Selz, University of Bern / Eawag and © Florian Moser, University of Bern / Eawag
By the time scientists were interested in marine life, species extinction was already in full swing. The research field was the Mwanza Gulf, a southern spur of the lake.
Further research took place in the Speke Gulf in the southeastern part of the lake. In these two parts of the water a larger number of different cichlid species were found, which did not exist in many other regions of the lake.
The research in Leiden is coming to an end, at other universities, eg. in Japan or the USA, research continues.
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