Athena Review Image Archive ™
Oreochromus mossambicus (tilapia) skull & brain
Skull and brain of the Madagascar tilapia (after Simoes et al. 2012).
Tilapia or cichlids are a small, present-day bony fish belonging to the order Perciformes and the family Cichlidae, one of the largest vertebrate families with over 3000 species. Cichlids present a wide variation in social behavior, ranging from territorial to shoaling species, and in mating, including both monogamous and polygamous breeding (Simoes et al. 2012). They are found in East Africa, Madagascar, and western Asia, and alsoabundant in the West Indies, southern Mexico, and South America, with fossil evidence starting in the Miocene period.
The brain of the Madagascar tilapia, Oreochromis mossambicus, was studied by Simoes et al. (2012) through a series of MRI scans which allowed them to make precise three-dimensional maps. They compared two main areas, the cerebral hemisphere (telencephalon) and the lobus inferior (diencephalon) of O. mossambicus with those of another tilapia species, Astatotilapia burtoni. The cerebrum of these two species shows a very similar organization that is typical of percomorphs. The diencephalon or inferior lobe, however, showed structural differences between the two species, something the researchers hope to correlate with behavioral differences.
References:
Romer, AS. 1966. Vertebrate Paleontology. University of Chicago Press.
Simoes, J.M., M.C. Teles, R.F. Oliveira, A. Van der Linden3, M. Verhoye 2012. Three-Dimensional Stereotaxic MRI Brain Atlas of the Cichlid Fish Oreochromis mossambicus. PLos One Vol.7, no. 9.
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