Editing Adaptive radiation (section)

==== Tanganyika cichlids ====
[[Lake Tanganyika]] is the site from which nearly all the cichlid lineages of East Africa (including both riverine and lake species) originated.<ref name="Salzburger">{{Cite journal |author=Salzburger |author2=Mack |author3=Verheyen |author4=Meyer |date=2005|title=Out of Tanganyika: Genesis, explosive speciation, key-innovations and phylogeography of the haplochromine cichlid fishes|journal=BMC Evolutionary Biology|volume=5|issue=17 |pages=17|doi=10.1186/1471-2148-5-17|pmid=15723698 |pmc=554777 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Thus, the species in the lake constitute a single adaptive radiation event but do not form a single [[monophyly|monophyletic]] [[clade]].<ref name="Salzburger" /> Lake Tanganyika is also the least speciose of the three largest African Great Lakes, with only around 200 species of cichlid;<ref name="Konings" /> however, these cichlids are more morphologically divergent and ecologically distinct than their counterparts in lakes Malawi and Victoria, an artifact of Lake Tanganyika's older cichlid fauna. Lake Tanganyika itself is believed to have formed 9–12 million years ago, putting a recent cap on the age of the lake's cichlid fauna.<ref name="Konings" /> Many of Tanganyika's cichlids live very specialized lifestyles. The giant or emperor cichlid (''[[Giant cichlid|Boulengerochromis microlepis]]'') is a piscivore often ranked the largest of all cichlids (though it competes for this title with South America's ''[[Cichla temensis]]'', the speckled peacock bass).<ref name="Konings" /> It is thought that giant cichlids spawn only a single time, breeding in their third year and defending their young until they reach a large size, before dying of starvation some time thereafter.<ref name="Konings" /> The three species of ''[[Altolamprologus]]'' are also piscivores, but with laterally compressed bodies and thick scales enabling them to chase prey into thin cracks in rocks without damaging their skin.<ref name="Konings" /> ''[[Plecodus straeleni]]'' has evolved large, strangely curved teeth that are designed to scrape scales off of the sides of other fish, scales being its main source of food.<ref name="Konings" /> ''[[Gnathochromis permaxillaris]]'' possesses a large mouth with a protruding upper lip, and feeds by opening this mouth downward onto the sandy lake bottom, sucking in small invertebrates.<ref name="Konings" /> A number of Tanganyika's cichlids are shell-brooders, meaning that mating pairs lay and fertilize their eggs inside of empty shells on the lake bottom.<ref name="Konings" /> ''[[Lamprologus callipterus]]'' is a unique egg-brooding species, with 15&nbsp;cm-long males amassing collections of shells and guarding them in the hopes of attracting females (about 6&nbsp;cm in length) to lay eggs in these shells.<ref name="Konings" /> These dominant males must defend their territories from three types of rival: (1) other dominant males looking to steal shells; (2) younger, "sneaker" males looking to fertilize eggs in a dominant male's territory; and (3) tiny, 2–4&nbsp;cm "parasitic dwarf" males that also attempt to rush in and fertilize eggs in the dominant male's territory.<ref name="Konings" /> These parasitic dwarf males never grow to the size of dominant males, and the male offspring of dominant and parasitic dwarf males grow with 100% fidelity into the form of their fathers.<ref name="Konings" /> A number of other highly specialized Tanganyika cichlids exist aside from these examples, including those adapted for life in open lake water up to 200m deep.<ref name="Konings" />