The Congo basin
8 speciesCentral Africa · the Congo river & its tributaries
The vast, warm, tea-stained rainforest waters of the Congo — the mainstem and its great tributaries the Ubangi, Kasai, Sangha, Lomami and Lualaba, with their flooded forest, backwaters and rapids. This is the heartland of bichir diversity, home to the ornate (P. ornatipinnis), barred (P. delhezi) and mottled (P. weeksii) bichirs, the giant Congo bichir (P. congicus), the dwarf P. mokelembembe, and the little West-Congo species P. polli and P. retropinnis.
The Nile, Chad & the Sudanian rivers
3 speciesThe Sahel & Sudan · the Nile, Lake Chad, Niger, Senegal & Volta
The great savanna belt that stretches across Africa from the Senegal in the west, through the inland Niger and Lake Chad, to the White Nile and Lake Turkana in the east — seasonal rivers and vast floodplains that swell and shrink with the rains. The range of the wide-ranging, hardy bichirs the hobby knows best: the Senegal or dinosaur bichir (P. senegalus), the Nile bichir (P. bichir) and the saddled bichir (P. endlicherii).
The Cross & Cameroon rivers
2 speciesWest-Central Africa · the Cross, Sanaga & coastal Cameroon
The short, forested rivers of the Nigeria–Cameroon border and the Cameroon coast — the Cross, Sanaga, Wouri and their neighbours, draining the wet highlands straight to the Gulf of Guinea. Warm, soft, often acidic water that holds narrow-range endemics, most notably Teugels' bichir (P. teugelsi) of the upper Cross River.
The Guinea & Gulf-of-Guinea coastal rivers
1 speciesWest Africa · the Upper Guinea rivers & the Niger Delta swamps
The coastal rainforest rivers and blackwater swamps of the Gulf of Guinea — from Sierra Leone and Liberia east through Ivory Coast and Ghana to the Niger Delta and the Ogooué. Soft, warm, tannin-stained water low in oxygen, exactly the sort of place a lung is useful. The home of the marbled bichir (P. palmas), the Guinean bichir (P. ansorgii), and the eel-like reedfish (Erpetoichthys calabaricus) of the delta swamps.