Dikume facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Dikume |
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| Conservation status | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Perciformes |
| Family: | Cichlidae |
| Genus: | Konia |
| Species: |
K. dikume
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| Binomial name | |
| Konia dikume Trewavas, 1972
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The dikume (Konia dikume) is a special type of fish that is in great danger of disappearing forever. It belongs to the Cichlidae family, which includes many popular aquarium fish. You can only find the dikume in one place: Lake Barombi Mbo in western Cameroon. This makes it a very unique and important species.
Contents
What Does the Dikume Look Like?
The dikume is a shiny, silver fish. It has light stripes going up and down its body. It can grow up to about 11 centimeters long, which is roughly the length of a pen. One unique thing about this fish is that when it's just caught, tiny blood vessels near its fins can swell up and make its skin look a bit reddish.
Where Does the Dikume Live?
The dikume lives only in Lake Barombi Mbo. This lake is in western Cameroon. It's a special lake formed inside a volcano, like a big bowl. The lake is about 3 miles wide. However, only the top 40 meters of the lake has enough oxygen for fish and other animals to breathe.
How Does the Dikume Live?
The dikume is an invertebrate feeder. This means it eats small creatures without backbones. It especially likes to eat the young forms (larvae) of a type of mosquito called Chaoborus. These larvae often live in deeper parts of the lake where there is not much oxygen.
To reach its food, the dikume has to swim into these deep, low-oxygen areas. It has a special adaptation to do this: its blood has a lot of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin helps store oxygen, so the dikume can hold its breath for longer while it's in the deep water.
Like many other cichlid fish from Lake Barombi Mbo, the dikume is a mouthbrooder. This means the mother fish keeps her eggs and young babies safe inside her mouth until they are big enough to swim on their own.
What Dangers Does the Dikume Face?
The dikume is in danger because of things people do. These include pollution and too much dirt (called siltation) getting into the lake. This dirt comes from human activities around the lake.
There's also a possible threat from natural gas. Sometimes, lakes can release large amounts of carbon dioxide gas from their bottom. This happened at another lake called Lake Nyos. However, studies show that Lake Barombi Mbo probably doesn't have too much of this gas.
Another problem is that people are taking too much water from the lake to supply the nearby town of Kumba. Also, there's a risk of new types of fish being put into the lake that don't belong there. Luckily, right now, there are no new fish species in Lake Barombi Mbo. Also, fishing for money is not allowed there, which helps protect the dikume.
Dikume's Family Tree
Lake Barombi Mbo is home to many different types of cichlid fish. Scientists call this a "species flock." There are fourteen different cichlid species in the lake, and twelve of them are found nowhere else in the world. They all seem to have come from one common ancestor, a fish similar to a tilapia. The dikume is one of the more unique and specialized fish in this group.
 | Isaac Myers |
 | D. Hamilton Jackson |
 | A. Philip Randolph |
