Chapter: The Diversity of Fishes: Biology, Evolution, and Ecology: Zoogeography

African region Freshwater Fishes

The African region has a diverse freshwater fish fauna that includes 27 families of primary freshwater species and a number of primitive species as discussed below under archaic distributions.

African region

The African region has a diverse freshwater fish fauna that includes 27 families of primary freshwater species and a number of primitive species as discussed below under archaic distributions. The region contains a total of about 2000 species of primary and secondary fishes belonging to about 280 genera and 47 families (Roberts 1975c).

Almost half the species are ostariophysans (300 species of minnows, 190 characins, and more than 360 catfishes from six families). Roberts recognized 10 ichthyofaunal provinces (although these were modified into nine by Lévêque et al. (2008)) (Fig. 16.11):

1 Maghreb Province.

2 Nilo-Sudan Province.

3 Upper Guinea Province.

4 Lower Guinea Province.

5 Congo Province.

6 Quanza Province.

7 Zambezi Province.

8 East Coast Province.

9 Southern Province or Cape of Good Hope.

10 Madagascar Province.

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The Diversity of Fishes: Biology, Evolution, and Ecology: Zoogeography : African region Freshwater Fishes |