Dambas

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notho2000

notho2000

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MFK Member
Aug 16, 2010
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winnipeg, canada
Whenever I give my presentation on 'The Cichlids of Madagascar' to groups, my commitment, enthusiasm and passion for them seems to build even more. There is nothing quite like them in the world of cichlids and cichlid keeping. I have a video of some of my Dambas and I'd like to share it with you. They are Paretroplus menarambo, maculatus, and nourissati.

 
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notho2000 Your Paretroplus menarambo are breathtaking. I told my friend Tommy they are a must have for his tank. Are they a schooling fish.
 
Absolutely beautiful! Do you know what the proposed ancestral species of these fish are? Obviously, Paratilapia are linked to a Tilapian ancestor, or atleast would appear so from their appearance. I'm curious if these fish are more related to the Chromide group or perhaps something totally different.
 
smitty03281964 said:
notho2000 Your Paretroplus menarambo are breathtaking. I told my friend Tommy they are a must have for his tank. Are they a schooling fish.
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thanks Smitty. They definitely do best in groups but don't really school. This tank is pretty crowded so they are kind of forced to school.
 
lunsforj said:
Absolutely beautiful! Do you know what the proposed ancestral species of these fish are? Obviously, Paratilapia are linked to a Tilapian ancestor, or atleast would appear so from their appearance. I'm curious if these fish are more related to the Chromide group or perhaps something totally different.
Click to expand...
Thank you. These fish are believed to be the origin of most of the cichlids that are found in other parts of the world. So they ARE the ancestral species.
 
One thing the Paretroplines (dambas) and the Etroplines share that no other cichlids have, in any other part of the world is a primitive distinct auditory system connected to the swim bladder. It is one of the things that link Madagascar closer with India, than Africa.
There is a TV documentary called Rise of the Continents, Eurasia that talks about the connection of India to Madagascar, and the narrator uses Etroplus suratensus to explain the link
 
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I was actually just researching this and that's more or less the consensus. Also there is a dispute over the the actual beginning of cichlids as a family. Conventionally, cichlids were thought to have appeared in the mid Cretaceous, but it seems there is a lack of fossil evidence. Therefore, others have argued that cichlids originated around 39 to 44 million years ago.

What is strange with Madagascar is there seems to be two distinct lineages. The Paratilapia group and the Damba group, which to me strongly resemble the Chromide group of India. Did these two lineages share a common ancestor and just diverge into distinctive lineages through seperation of habitat/niches? Or, was there a second introduction to Madagascar? Perhaps a Tilapian species that was tolerant of saltwater conditions long enough to reach the distant land mass of Madagascar.
 
The reason for the dispute over time periods is because the older model basically accounts for finding cichlids on all the known continents that were thought to be connected at the time of their origin. Where as the later model is more complicated, and is more speculative on distribution theories.
 
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