Ocean Facts
Picture of ocean stuff.

Description

Certain species of tropical fish carry fertilised eggs in their mouths and continue to hold the babies there for a while after they hatch.This can be found in both paternal and maternal members of the species. The following section will focus primarily on mouthbrooding cichlids from the African Rift Valley from the lakes Malawi and Tanganyika. Once the babies have hatched they will feed on the remnants of the yolk for the following 25 days or so, after which the female will gather food in order to feed the young whilst they remain in her mouth. Babies that are fed ‘bucally' this way develop to be far more durable, faster and heavier than fry and although mouthbrooding provides a smaller batch of babies than other methods, they are stronger and will be more likely to reach maturity.