Eggspots Elsewhere - Welt der Fische / World of Fishes

Katonga is the name of a river in Uganda and more recently also that of a Haplochromis
species to date found only in this water. The Katonga doesn’t really deserve the name of river
at all, as it is largely choked with papyrus and reeds. The swamp in which the Katonga rises,
and which it drains into Lake Victoria to the east, is also drained by the Mpanga westwards
to Lake George. The Katonga and Mpanga thus theoretically constitute a connection between
Lake Victoria and lakes George and Edward. However, GREENWOOD (1973), wrote that the
upper course of the Katonga was uninhabitable for all fishes except those that breathe air -
and thus implied that this river did not permit any genetic exchange between Lake Victoria
and lakes George and Edward.
During an expedition in 1998 HERBERT TICHY and ERWIN SCHRAML fished in the Katonga not far
from its source and despite GREENWOOD’s statement caught gill-breathing fishes there – small
barbs (Barbus sp.), Pseudocrenilabrus victoriae, Oreochromis sp., and a Haplochromis
species that could not be assigned to any previously described taxon. Because it was the only
The holotype of H. katonga, the only adult male of the species found to date, shortly after capture.
Haplochromis known from this river to date, they described the species as new, choosing the
name of the river as the specific name and Haplochromis as the genus name. In so doing they
followed the advice of VAN OIJEN, who has recommended choosing this generic designation for
all haplochromine cichlids from the Lake Victoria basin for the time being. In fact the new
species cannot be unequivocally assigned to any of the genera erected or revalidated by
GREENWOOD, as it exhibits affinities with Astatotilapia as well as with Enterochromis.
eggspots No. 4
A new Haplochromis described from the Katonga
by FRANK SCHÄFER
27