Food switching by two specialized algae-scraping cichlid fishes in Lake Malawi, Africa.

Two cichlid species morphological specialized for scraping algae were observed in Lake Malawi also to feed extensively upon zooplankton, phytoplankton, detritus, fish fry and fish eggs. These field observations confirm laboratory studies that cichlids are facultative in their feeding repertoire. Such an ability contributes to the success of the family Cichlidae. We hypothesize that the morphological specializations become critically important when food resources are low and effective cropping is required.