Photos of X. sp. red princess in its natural habitat

[Thomas Andersen]

Hi Evert,

good to see you here

I´m absolutely certain will have some interesting discussions

All the best,

Thomas

[Mark Smith]

Hello Evert:

Great that you have jumped in! Thanks again for being willing to share all your fascinating photographs taken from the depths of the lake. This is what dreams are made of for us Tanganyikan cichlid fanatics!!

When you visit the lake, do you stay with any of the collectors? Do you have additional photos of deepwater fishes, including eels and catfish??

Keep up the great work!!

Mark

[tanganyikadiver]

hello,

yes i have about 2000 slides of all kind of tangayika area's, fish, shrimps and everything about the lake. i just bought a slide-scanner so i am turning them digital.

no i do not stay at any collector although i know them all and some are friends. and some of the diving guys who work for the collectors are real mates.

greetings evert

[Mark Smith]

Evert

What sort of camera do you use? I recently bought a Nikon D70 and am completely satisfied with it. I use it to copy my slides to digital format, rather than using a slide scanner - its cheaper that way and I can also control the quality of each copy better than a slide scanner.

Mark

[cyatide]

Hello Evert,

great to hear from you here, even if I'm (possibly, we are!) green with envy

I hope our many questions will not bore you too soon


Here are a few questions about the red princess Xeno:

1) How many of them have you seen (few specimens, dozens, hundreds ...)?

2) Were them alone, in pairs, in sohals ...

3) Thomas reffered us that you have found this Xeno in two different places, were them the same depth?

Thank you a lot,

Paolo


PS) Mark,

I was wondering how can you copy your slides with the digicam

[Mark Smith]

Hi Paolo

It's pretty easy actually. I just mount my camera above the slide I intend to copy. The slide is sitting on a backlit box, and I use the Nikon D70 with the 105 macro lens. I can easily focus within the borders of the slide. After I have focused, I then set the remote shutter release so that when the shutter goes off, everything is very still. I set the f stop at 16 and the shutter spead at about 1/10th of a second to 1/30th of a second depending if the slide is dark or light.

Let me know if you are success with your attempt.

Mark

[tanganyikadiver]

hello,

for my underwater pics i use a eos 300 and a sea and sea underwaterhouse. also connected are a sea and sea strobe and a slave strobe.

for the Q's of the red princess.
we found them on 2 locations. first one was chituta bay and the second under cape chaitika.
we always without no exception found them alone and always at a depth of 40-60 meters deep.
at chituta bay on the mud and the other location on sand.
at chituta bay we found only a few fish while at chaitika we would see them plenty.

[cyatide]

Thank you, Mark!

And thank you, Evert , for your very interesting info about the red princesses!

So the mating way (biparental or maternal mouthbrooding) of this fish is still a mistery, at least to me.

Evert, I' ll try to resist to make you further questions for the next days

[cyatide]

I was wondering what is the temperature at a depth of 40-60 meters deep in the Lake ...

[tanganyikadiver]

the water temp. on these depths are about 23-24 degrees. so usually around 2 degrees less then near the surface.

[Thomas Andersen]

Evert has send me this picture, and neither of us can directly put a name to the cichlid on it. Evert only saw it 2 times at one location on 30 meters deep in very low numbers

Any suggestions for this one?

[Mark Smith]

Hi Thomas and Evert

Most likely an undescribed "Lamprologus" or Neolamprologus" species. There seem to be so many small Lamprologines of that general shape and coloration, that without a body in hand, would be impossible to figure out if it is described or not.

I like the shape of this shell dweller. It does look remotely similar to what was called L. meeli and L. hecqui in the US trade.

Evert, keep the great photos coming!!

Mark

[Thomas Andersen]

Some new pictures from the deep by Evert

All pictures © Evert van Ammelrooy

A very big mastacembelus spp. measuring 50 cm





Lates spp

[Mark Smith]

Evert and Thomas

Thanks for posting more photos. Great shots of "M." cunningtoni and Lates! It is interesting to see from the photo that cunningtoni buries itself in the substrate. I had no idea they did that.

Mark

[Mark Smith]

Hello Evert

Just wanted to touch base to inquire if you have any more interesting underwater photos from Lake Tanganyika you would like to post???

Take care,
Mark

[Thomas Andersen]

Hi Mark,

I just talked with Evert a couple of days ago, he is very, very busy at the moment, but have patience, I think there´s still a lot of goodies and surprises to come

Here are some more of Evert´s pics - enjoy!

All photos © Evert van Ammelrooy

Trematocara variabile:





Paracyprichromis nigripinnis:



Xenotilapia sp. "papilio sunflower" Chituta:



B. microlepis:



Lamprologus signatus:





Cyprichromis sp. "leptosoma goldfin":

[Mark Smith]

Hi Thomas

Thanks for the update and photos. I couldn't help but notice that the Lamprologus species is likely L. laparogramma and not L. signatus. The give-away is the black vertical stripping along the abdomen in the female.

Mark

[Thomas Andersen]

Yes Mark, you´re absolutely right, thanks for the correction

If I remember correctly, Ad Konings has suggested that L. laparogramma should be regarded as a geographical variant of L. signatus. Any thoughts on this proposed synonymy?

All the best,

Thomas

[Mark Smith]

Hi Thomas

Bills and Ribbink described L. laparogramma in 1997 and their paper is pretty detailed and seems to clearly justify this new species' existence. They also rediagnosed both L. kungweensis and L. signatus in the paper. Also, according to the paper, L. signatus and L. laparogramma do not live sympatrically. L. laparogramma is only found from Kasanga to about 8 miles north of Gombe in Zambia. L. signatus is found from Cape Chaitika in Zambia northwards into Congo as far as Moba. There appears to be a deep water barrier between both species from Cape Chaitika to Gombe in Zambia, both place being about 15 to 18 miles apart.

Having said that, the morphometric data in the paper is virtually the same between both species. So, it seems like a new species but I may not be 100 % sure. It sort of reminds me of those species that look very similar in the lake, such as L. leloupi and L. caudopunctatus, or N. brichardi and N. pulcher, etc.

Mark

If I remember correctly, Ad Konings has suggested that L. laparogramma should be regarded as a geographical variant of L. signatus. Any thoughts on this proposed synonymy?

All the best,

[Mark Smith]

Just curious to know if we'll be seeing any further underwater photos from Evert anytime soon?? My apologies for asking again.......