{"generatedAt":"2026-08-29T22:51:27.831Z","note":"Curated water bodies with research-grade measured data. Profiles at /api/v1/water/{slug}.json.","count":32,"waters":[{"slug":"barombi-mbo","name":"Barombi Mbo","type":"crater_lake","region":"West-Central Africa","country":"Cameroon","maxDepthM":110,"lengthKm":2,"notes":"Barombi Mbo, a volcanic crater lake in southwest Cameroon (~4.2 km², ~110 m deep) on the Cameroon Volcanic Line — the classic example of sympatric speciation in a crater lake, holding an endemic flock of eleven cichlids in the genera Sarotherodon, Coptodon, Pungu, Stomatepia and Konia (Trewavas, Green & Corbet 1972; Schliewen, Tautz & Pääbo 1994).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/barombi-mbo/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/barombi-mbo.json"},{"slug":"india-sri-lanka","name":"Coastal India & Sri Lanka","type":"clearwater_river","region":"Asia","country":"India; Sri Lanka","notes":"The fresh and brackish coastal waters of peninsular India and Sri Lanka are home to Etroplus and Pseudetroplus — the only cichlids native to Asia, and the easternmost wild cichlids on Earth. The green chromide Etroplus suratensis and orange chromide Pseudetroplus maculatus range through estuaries and lagoons; Etroplus canarensis is a narrow Western-Ghats endemic (Sparks & Smith 2004).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/india-sri-lanka/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/india-sri-lanka.json"},{"slug":"cuatro-cienegas","name":"Cuatro Ciénegas","type":"spring","region":"North America","country":"Mexico","notes":"A desert basin of spring-fed pools and channels (pozas) in Coahuila, Mexico — a Ramsar wetland and one of North America's great endemism hotspots. Its endemic cichlid, Herichthys minckleyi, is a celebrated case of trophic polymorphism: a single species with distinct papilliform (soft-food) and molariform (snail-crushing) jaw morphs (Kornfield & Taylor 1983; Hulsey et al. 2005).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/cuatro-cienegas/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/cuatro-cienegas.json"},{"slug":"hormozgan-rivers","name":"Hormozgan Coastal Rivers","type":"clearwater_river","region":"Persian Gulf","country":"Iran","notes":"The coastal rivers, streams and springs of Hormozgan province in southern Iran, draining to the Persian Gulf at the Strait of Hormuz. They are the home of Iranocichla — the only cichlid genus native to Iran, and among the easternmost native cichlids on Earth. Iranocichla hormuzensis lives in the Mehran River drainage; I. persa (Esmaeili et al. 2016) in the Shur, Hasanlangi and Minab drainages. Both favour warm, often brackish water, frequently around thermal springs (Esmaeili et al. 2016; Coad, Freshwater Fishes of Iran).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/hormozgan-rivers/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/hormozgan-rivers.json"},{"slug":"jordan-hula","name":"Jordan River & Lake Hula","type":"clearwater_river","region":"Levant","country":"Israel","notes":"The upper Jordan River and the drained wetlands of the Hula valley in northern Israel — the freshwater corridor that links the Levantine cichlids to their African ancestors. It carries the same assemblage as the Sea of Galilee downstream — the St. Peter's-fish tilapias and the relict haplochromine Astatotilapia flaviijosephi — and is the type region for several. The draining of Lake Hula in the 1950s remains one of the region's defining ecological events (Goren & Ortal 1999).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/jordan-hula/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/jordan-hula.json"},{"slug":"laguna-apoyo","name":"Laguna de Apoyo","type":"crater_lake","region":"Central America","country":"Nicaragua","maxDepthM":175,"lengthKm":6,"notes":"A water-filled volcanic crater beside Lake Nicaragua, ~21 km² and ~175 m deep. It holds one of the youngest known cichlid radiations — an endemic flock of Amphilophus (the Apoyo 'arrow' cichlid Amphilophus zaliosus and relatives) that evolved in situ from a Midas-cichlid founder within roughly the last ten thousand years, a textbook case of sympatric speciation (Barluenga et al. 2006, Nature).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/laguna-apoyo/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/laguna-apoyo.json"},{"slug":"laguna-xiloa","name":"Laguna de Xiloá","type":"crater_lake","region":"Central America","country":"Nicaragua","maxDepthM":89,"lengthKm":2,"notes":"A small volcanic crater lake on the Chiltepe peninsula beside Lake Managua, Nicaragua (~3.8 km², ~89 m deep). It holds its own endemic flock of Midas cichlids (Amphilophus) — A. xiloaensis, A. amarillo, A. sagittae and A. viridis — that radiated in situ within roughly the last ten thousand years, a young sympatric radiation parallel to (but independent of) Laguna de Apoyo's (Barluenga & Meyer 2010; Stauffer & McKaye 2002).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/laguna-xiloa/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/laguna-xiloa.json"},{"slug":"lake-albert","name":"Lake Albert","type":"rift_lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Uganda; Democratic Republic of the Congo","maxDepthM":58,"lengthKm":160,"notes":"Lake Albert (Mwitanzige), a Western (Albertine) Rift lake on the Uganda–DR Congo border and a source lake of the White Nile — about 5,300 km², ~160 km long and shallow (mean ~25 m, max ~58 m). It mixes riverine Nilotic fishes with rift endemics, including an endemic haplochromine assemblage and the tilapias Oreochromis niloticus and Coptodon zillii (Greenwood 1973).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-albert/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-albert.json"},{"slug":"lake-bangweulu","name":"Lake Bangweulu","type":"lake","region":"South-Central Africa","country":"Zambia","maxDepthM":10,"lengthKm":75,"notes":"Lake Bangweulu and its vast swamps, a shallow Congo-basin (Luapula) wetland-lake in northern Zambia — the open lake ~3,000 km² (the wider swamp system far larger), only a few metres deep. Its cichlids include Serranochromis and Sargochromis, the dwarf mouthbrooder Pseudocrenilabrus, and tilapiines such as Oreochromis and Tilapia (Bell-Cross & Minshull 1988).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-bangweulu/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-bangweulu.json"},{"slug":"lake-bermin","name":"Lake Bermin","type":"crater_lake","region":"West-Central Africa","country":"Cameroon","maxDepthM":14,"lengthKm":1,"notes":"Lake Bermin, a tiny volcanic crater lake in western Cameroon holding a flock of nine endemic Coptodon — one of the most species-dense sympatric cichlid radiations known relative to lake size (Stiassny, Schliewen & Dominey 1992; Schliewen et al. 1994).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-bermin/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-bermin.json"},{"slug":"lake-edward","name":"Lake Edward","type":"rift_lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Uganda; DR Congo","maxDepthM":117,"lengthKm":77,"notes":"A Western Rift lake on the Uganda–DR Congo border, ~2,300 km² and up to ~117 m deep, draining north via the Semliki River to Lake Albert and the Nile. It carries its own modest flock of endemic haplochromine cichlids (and tilapias), part of the Lake Edward–George system distinct from the Victoria radiation (Snoeks; Greenwood).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-edward/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-edward.json"},{"slug":"lake-kivu","name":"Lake Kivu","type":"rift_lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Rwanda; DR Congo","maxDepthM":485,"lengthKm":89,"notes":"A Rift lake perched on the Congo–Nile divide and draining south into Lake Tanganyika via the Ruzizi River. Roughly 2,370 km² in area and up to about 485 m deep (Schmid et al. 2008). It is sharply meromictic and chemically extraordinary: a thin freshwater surface layer floats over deep water that grows saline and holds one of the largest reservoirs of dissolved CO₂ and methane on Earth — the source of both an energy industry and a recognised limnic-eruption hazard. Its fish fauna is small but distinctive, with about 15 endemic haplochromine cichlids (Snoeks 1994).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-kivu/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-kivu.json"},{"slug":"lake-malawi","name":"Lake Malawi","type":"rift_lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Malawi; Mozambique; Tanzania","maxDepthM":706,"lengthKm":560,"notes":"Also Lake Nyasa or Niassa: the southernmost of the great African rift lakes. Meromictic — an oxygenated surface layer overlies a permanently anoxic deep zone below ~250 m. Holds the richest cichlid species flock of any lake on Earth.","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-malawi/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-malawi.json"},{"slug":"lake-managua","name":"Lake Managua","type":"lake","region":"Central America","country":"Nicaragua","maxDepthM":30,"lengthKm":58,"notes":"Lake Managua (Xolotlán), ~1,040 km² in the Nicaraguan depression, draining south to Lake Nicaragua via the Río Tipitapa. Shallow and, today, heavily impacted by the city on its shore, it still carries a Central-American cichlid assemblage — Amphilophus, Parachromis and relatives — and is ringed by volcanic crater lakes that hold their own endemic fishes (Bussing 1998).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-managua/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-managua.json"},{"slug":"lake-mweru","name":"Lake Mweru","type":"rift_lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Zambia; DR Congo","maxDepthM":27,"lengthKm":131,"notes":"A large, shallow lake of the Luapula–Mweru system in the Congo basin, southwest of Tanganyika: about 5,120 km² in area, 131 km long and only ~7.5 m deep on average (max ~27 m) (Bos et al. 2006). Despite its modest depth it hosts a remarkable, geologically young cichlid radiation — Meier et al. (2019) showed that hybridisation between Congolese and Bangweulu lineages, coinciding with new ecological opportunity, seeded multiple endemic radiations of Serranochromis, Orthochromis and others.","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-mweru/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-mweru.json"},{"slug":"lake-natron-magadi","name":"Lake Natron & Lake Magadi","type":"lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Tanzania; Kenya","maxDepthM":3,"lengthKm":57,"notes":"Lakes Natron (Tanzania) and Magadi (Kenya), hyper-alkaline Eastern-Rift soda lakes — shallow, hot and saturated with sodium carbonate. They are home to the soda cichlids Alcolapia (A. alcalica, A. grahami, A. latilabris, A. ndalalani), extremophile tilapiines that live at pH near 10 and water temperatures to ~40 °C around the hot-spring inflows (Coe 1966; Seegers & Tichy 1999).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-natron-magadi/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-natron-magadi.json"},{"slug":"lake-nicaragua","name":"Lake Nicaragua","type":"lake","region":"Central America","country":"Nicaragua","maxDepthM":26,"lengthKm":160,"notes":"Central America's largest lake (Lago Cocibolca): roughly 8,260 km², ~160 km long and shallow — about 13 m deep on average, ~26 m at most — draining to the Caribbean through the San Juan River. A centre of Neotropical cichlid diversity, home to the Midas-cichlid complex (Amphilophus), the predatory guapotes (Parachromis), and Hypsophrys, Amatitlania and Vieja, and famous for the bull sharks and sawfish that once ran up the San Juan (Barlow 1976; Bussing 1998).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-nicaragua/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-nicaragua.json"},{"slug":"lake-rukwa","name":"Lake Rukwa","type":"rift_lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Tanzania","maxDepthM":15,"lengthKm":180,"notes":"A shallow, alkaline, endorheic lake in the Rukwa Rift of southwestern Tanzania, between Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi. With no outlet, its level and area swing dramatically with rainfall — historically splitting into two basins in dry phases — and its waters are saline and alkaline. Its cichlid fauna is small and adapted to those harsh, variable conditions, and includes the endemic Rukwa tilapia (Oreochromis rukwaensis, IUCN Vulnerable).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-rukwa/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-rukwa.json"},{"slug":"lake-tanganyika","name":"Lake Tanganyika","type":"rift_lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Burundi; DR Congo; Tanzania; Zambia","maxDepthM":1470,"lengthKm":673,"notes":"Second-deepest and second-oldest lake on Earth. Permanently stratified (meromictic): a deep anoxic monimolimnion underlies a thin oxygenated mixolimnion.","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-tanganyika/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-tanganyika.json"},{"slug":"lake-victoria","name":"Lake Victoria","type":"lake","region":"East Africa","country":"Uganda; Kenya; Tanzania","maxDepthM":84,"lengthKm":337,"notes":"The world's largest tropical lake (~68,800 km²), a shallow down-warped basin — about 40 m deep on average, ~84 m at most — feeding the White Nile. It hosted the fastest large vertebrate radiation known: a flock of 500+ endemic haplochromine cichlids that arose within roughly 15,000 years (Seehausen 2002). The introduction of Nile perch (Lates niloticus), eutrophication and turbidity drove a catastrophic collapse from the 1980s, since partly reversed as some species reappear and re-diverge (Witte et al. 1992; Seehausen et al. 1997).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/lake-victoria/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/lake-victoria.json"},{"slug":"rio-grande","name":"Lower Rio Grande","type":"clearwater_river","region":"North America","country":"United States; Mexico","notes":"The lower Rio Grande (Río Bravo) of southern Texas and northeastern Mexico — home to Herichthys cyanoguttatus, the Rio Grande cichlid, the only cichlid native to the United States. A hardy substrate-spawner of warm, vegetated reaches, it has spread with warming and now also lives in introduced populations across central Texas and into Louisiana (Hubbs et al.; Page & Burr).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/rio-grande/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/rio-grande.json"},{"slug":"madagascar","name":"Madagascar's Rivers & Lakes","type":"clearwater_river","region":"Madagascar","country":"Madagascar","notes":"Madagascar's rivers, lakes and coastal wetlands hold an ancient, deep-branching endemic cichlid fauna — Paratilapia, Paretroplus, Ptychochromis, Ptychochromoides and Katria — survivors of the family's Gondwanan origins and among the most threatened cichlids on Earth, squeezed by deforestation, introduced tilapias and overfishing (Stiassny & Sparks 2006).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/madagascar/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/madagascar.json"},{"slug":"rio-negro","name":"Rio Negro & Blackwaters","type":"clearwater_river","region":"South America","country":"Brazil; Colombia; Venezuela","notes":"The Rio Negro, the great blackwater tributary of the Amazon — acidic (pH ~4–5), tea-stained, ion-poor water draining the north-western basin. It is the heartland of the wild discus (Symphysodon) and a centre of Apistogramma, Pterophyllum and many small characins, and the source of much of the ornamental-fish trade out of Barcelos (Sioli 1984; Goulding et al. 1988).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/rio-negro/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/rio-negro.json"},{"slug":"sea-of-galilee","name":"Sea of Galilee","type":"rift_lake","region":"Levant","country":"Israel","maxDepthM":43,"lengthKm":21,"notes":"The Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret), the freshwater lake of the Jordan Rift in northern Israel — about 166 km² in area, ~21 km long and up to ~43 m deep, lying roughly 210 m below sea level. It is warm-monomictic, stratifying through the hot summer and mixing in winter. Its native fish include several cichlids: the Galilee 'St. Peter's fish' Sarotherodon galilaeus, blue tilapia Oreochromis aureus, redbelly tilapia Coptodon zillii, the endemic Tristramella simonis, and Astatotilapia flaviijosephi — the only haplochromine cichlid in the Levant and a biogeographic relic of the African lineages (Serruya 1978; Goren & Ortal 1999).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/sea-of-galilee/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/sea-of-galilee.json"},{"slug":"amazon-basin","name":"The Amazon Basin","type":"whitewater_river","region":"South America","country":"Brazil; Peru; Colombia; Ecuador; Bolivia; Venezuela","notes":"The largest river basin on Earth and the great theatre of New-World cichlid evolution — a mosaic of white-water rivers, tannin-stained black waters like the Rio Negro, and clear-water tributaries. Its cichlids span the angelfishes (Pterophyllum) and discus (Symphysodon), the dwarf Apistogramma, the eartheaters (Geophagus, Satanoperca), the predatory peacock basses (Cichla), and many more — hundreds of species across dozens of genera (Kullander 2003; Lowe-McConnell 1991).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/amazon-basin/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/amazon-basin.json"},{"slug":"congo-basin","name":"The Congo Basin","type":"clearwater_river","region":"Central Africa","country":"Democratic Republic of the Congo; Republic of the Congo; Central African Republic; Angola; Cameroon; Gabon; Zambia","notes":"The Congo — the world's deepest river and second by discharge — and its vast central rainforest basin. Beyond the rift lakes on its eastern rim, the river itself holds an extraordinary cichlid fauna: the rheophilic specialists of the lower-river rapids (Lamprologus, Steatocranus, Teleogramma, Nanochromis), the Lualaba and the cuvette lakes, with the lower Congo's roaring canyons driving rapid in-situ divergence (Roberts & Stewart 1976; Markert et al. 2010; Stiassny et al.).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/congo-basin/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/congo-basin.json"},{"slug":"niger-volta","name":"The Niger & Volta","type":"clearwater_river","region":"West Africa","country":"Nigeria; Mali; Niger; Ghana; Burkina Faso; Guinea; Benin; Côte d'Ivoire","notes":"The great rivers of West Africa — the Niger, with its inland delta in Mali and its mangrove delta in Nigeria, and the Volta system of Ghana and Burkina Faso. Their cichlids are West African tilapias and chromides — Coptodon (Tilapia), Sarotherodon, Hemichromis the jewel cichlids, the rainbow kribs Pelvicachromis, Chromidotilapia and Hemichromis — across savanna rivers, floodplains and brackish deltas (Daget; Lévêque, Paugy & Teugels 1990–92).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/niger-volta/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/niger-volta.json"},{"slug":"nile-system","name":"The Nile System","type":"clearwater_river","region":"Africa","country":"Egypt; Sudan; South Sudan; Uganda; Ethiopia","notes":"The Nile — the world's longest river — from the Sudd wetlands of South Sudan down through Sudan and Egypt to the Mediterranean delta. Its cichlids are the great African tilapias whose type localities lie here — the Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus, Sarotherodon galilaeus, Coptodon zillii — alongside the jewel cichlids Hemichromis and the haplochromine Astatotilapia. The Nile is the river that carried these lineages across the continent (Boulenger 1907; Trewavas 1983).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/nile-system/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/nile-system.json"},{"slug":"orinoco-basin","name":"The Orinoco Basin","type":"clearwater_river","region":"South America","country":"Venezuela; Colombia","notes":"The Orinoco — the great river of the Venezuelan and Colombian Llanos — and its seasonally flooded savannas. Its cichlids include the eartheaters Geophagus and Biotodoma, the dwarf cichlids Apistogramma and Mikrogeophagus (the ram, M. ramirezi, from the Llanos), Mesonauta flag cichlids, Cichla peacock bass and Mazarunia — and it connects to the Amazon's Rio Negro through the natural Casiquiare canal (Lasso et al. 2004; Machado-Allison).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/orinoco-basin/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/orinoco-basin.json"},{"slug":"parana-la-plata","name":"The Paraná–La Plata","type":"clearwater_river","region":"South America","country":"Brazil; Paraguay; Argentina; Uruguay","notes":"The Paraná, Paraguay and Uruguay rivers of southern South America, draining to the Río de la Plata — the temperate southern frontier of the cichlid family. Here live the cold-tolerant eartheaters Gymnogeophagus, the chanchitos Australoheros, Cichlasoma, the pike cichlids Crenicichla, and southern Apistogramma — cichlids pushed to the edge of the family's range, enduring frosty winters the tropical lineages never face (Casciotta, Almirón & Bechara 2005; Říčan et al. 2011).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/parana-la-plata/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/parana-la-plata.json"},{"slug":"uruguay-river","name":"The Río Uruguay (middle & lower)","type":"clearwater_river","region":"South America","country":"Brazil; Argentina; Uruguay","lengthKm":1838,"notes":"The middle and lower Río Uruguay, which forms the Argentina–Uruguay border and drains to the Río de la Plata — a temperate, seasonally cool river at the southern edge of the cichlid family. Its fauna overlaps the wider Paraná–La Plata system: cold-tolerant eartheaters (Gymnogeophagus), chanchitos (Australoheros, Cichlasoma), pike cichlids (Crenicichla) and the southernmost Apistogramma (A. borellii, A. commbrae) (Loureiro et al., New records of freshwater fish for Uruguay; Krause Lanés et al. 2010; Říčan et al. 2011).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/uruguay-river/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/uruguay-river.json"},{"slug":"zambezi-okavango","name":"The Zambezi & Okavango","type":"clearwater_river","region":"Southern Africa","country":"Zambia; Angola; Namibia; Botswana; Zimbabwe","notes":"The floodplain rivers of south-central Africa — the upper Zambezi and Barotse plain, the Kafue Flats, and the inland Okavango Delta of Botswana. Their cichlids are the serranochromine predators Serranochromis and Sargochromis, the dwarf mouthbrooder Pseudocrenilabrus, the happy/largemouth breams, and tilapiines (Oreochromis, Coptodon, Tilapia) — a distinctive southern-African assemblage of the seasonal floodplains (Bell-Cross & Minshull 1988; Skelton 2001).","url":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/water/zambezi-okavango/","api":"https://www.aquaristatlas.com/api/v1/water/zambezi-okavango.json"}]}