In Lake Victoria, the largest tropical lake in the world, rocky outcrops provide a home for freshwater snails.

It’s also where they are hunted.

The lake covers land in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in eastern Africa, and the southern end is now home to two newly discovered species of “snail crushers.”

Six species of Labrochromis, a genus of mollusk-eating cichlid fishes , have been identified in Lake Victoria before, but none from the areas of the lake marked by rocky shores and reefs, according to a June 5 study published in the peer-reviewed journal ZooKeys.

Using gill nets between 1993 and 2010, researchers searched around Python Island, Kissenda Island and Makobe Island within the lake, and found two species of cichlid that looked different than ones found in other parts of Lake Vic

See Full Page