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The following description is adapted from Page and Burr (1991);Martínez-Palacios and Ross (1992);Miller et al. (2005);Nico et al. (2007);Froese and Pauly (2016);Global Invasive Species Database (2016);Robins (2016) and Schofield et al. (2016).

Related invasive species

  • Cichlasoma urophthalmum

Related Farm Practice

  • Invasive species
Impact

The Mayan cichlid fish, C. urophthalmum, is a medium-sized cichlid native to Central America that is kept worldwide as an ornamental fish. Introduced populations are established in the Florida peninsular, USA and also in Thailand and Singapore. C. urophthalmum has become established in aquatic habitats because of its wide environmental tolerances, ability to colonize disturbed habitats, trophic opportunism, fast growth rates and advanced parental care of offspring. C. urophthalmus inhabits freshwater marshes and mangrove swamps, but prefers coastal lagoons and rivers and the species is highly tolerant of a wide range of salinities and will reproduce in freshwater and saltwater. It is a generalist predator and potential ecological impacts upon endemic fish fauna may include resource competition and predation, and predation of aquatic invertebrate communities that impacts upon ecosystem function. When breeding, C. urophthalmum becomes aggressive as territories are established on the substrate and defended against intruders.

Has Cabi datasheet ID
88479
Oss tagged
x

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