Fish of Africa

The Rift lakes are a unique case in biology. Isolated for millions of years, they have seen hundreds of species appear in place from a handful of common ancestors, each specialised into a precise niche. Nowhere else has diversification been so fast or so visible.

The great rivers run to the rhythm of wet and dry seasons. The annual flood dictates movement, breeding and feeding for most species, and a shifted season changes a whole region’s fishing calendar.

On the coasts, the contrast is striking between a South Atlantic fed by cold, rich upwelling and a tropical Indian Ocean fringed with reef. The two frontages share almost no species, and the tip of the continent is one of the few places where they meet.