Marbled lungfish

Marbled lungfish
Temporal range: 7.246–Present Ma
Close-up of head (above), swimming with head at top and back turned towards camera (below)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Sarcopterygii
Class: Dipnoi
Order: Ceratodontiformes
Family: Protopteridae
Genus: Protopterus
Species:
P. aethiopicus
Binomial name
Protopterus aethiopicus
Heckel, 1851[1]
Subspecies
Red:extant , Light red: possibly extant , Green: introduced
Synonyms[2][3]
  • Lepidosiren arnaudii de Castelnau 1855

The marbled lungfish (Protopterus aethiopicus) is a lungfish of the family Protopteridae. Also known as the leopard lungfish, it is found in Eastern and Central Africa, as well as the Nile region. At 133 billion base pairs,[4] it has the largest known genome of any animal and one of the largest of any organism, along with the flowering plant Paris japonica, the fern Tmesipteris oblanceolata and the protist Polychaos dubium at 150 billion, 160 billion and 670 billion, respectively.

The marbled lungfish is caught in large numbers throughout much of its range, including several hundred metric tonnes per year in Mwanza Region's Mwanza Gulf of Lake Victoria alone.[5] It is mostly a food fish, although this varies depending on the exact community, with some recognizing it as a delicacy and others strongly disliking its taste or considering it as a taboo to eat it. In some regions, parts of this fish are used as traditional medicine.[5]

  1. ^ Fishbase.org
  2. ^ Haaramo, Mikko (2007). "Ceratodiformes – recent lungfishes". Mikko's Phylogeny Archive. Retrieved 3 July 2016.
  3. ^ Froese, R.; Pauly, D. (2017). "Protopteridae". FishBase version (02/2017). Retrieved 18 May 2017.
  4. ^ IJ Leitch (13 June 2007). "Genome sizes through the ages". Heredity. 99 (2). Nature Publishing Group: 121–122. doi:10.1038/sj.hdy.6800981. ISSN 0018-067X. PMID 17565357. S2CID 5406138.
  5. ^ a b Sayer, C.A.; L. Máiz-Tomé; W.R.T. Darwall (2018). Freshwater biodiversity in the Lake Victoria Basin: Guidance for species conservation, site protection, climate resilience and sustainable livelihoods. Cambridge, UK and Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. doi:10.2305/IUCN.CH.2018.RA.2.en. ISBN 9782831718965.