Why are there so many cichlid species?

The explosive speciation of cichlid fishes in the African great lakes has intrigued biologists for many decades. Interest was revitalized in 1996 after the publication in Science of geological data [1] indicating that the youngest lake, Lake Victoria, must have been completely dry during the most recent Ice perhaps as recently as 12,400 years ago. This implies that the approximately 500 haplochromine cichlid species must have evolved within this extremely short timespan from a single ancestral species [2]. But even with lower estimates of species number and higher estimates of the age of the species flock, the haplochromine cichlids still present one of the most dramatic examples of speciation and diversification in vertebrates.
KEYWORDS: Cichlids; Speciation; African great lakes; Reproductive isolation; Mate choice; Adaptive radiation; Diversity; Sexual selection; Colour; Jaw apparatus

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