<back
More about A Little Fish in Deep Water
Lake Tanganyika is an 'ocean' in Africa.
Millions of years ago, it was colonized by a fish called ‘cichlid’. Otters, crocodiles, cobras, cormorants, kingfishers and ospreys all hunt the fish in clear water. How the cichlid survived and evolved is an incredible story - for millions of years later there are over 200 new species - all found only in Lake Tanganyika.
Incredibly, they have evolved to look like coral-reef fish. There are cichlid equivalents of tuna, snapper, gobies and goatfish. They have evolved bizarre methods of breeding, with mouth-incubation, lekking and, unique amongst fish, there is even a cuckoo. Despite all their specialisations over millions of year - if an opportunity presents itself all the fish can behave like their unspecialised ancestor.
In the climax to the film, all shoal together to feast on the annual hatch of sardine fry.
This is the story of how one little fish, against all the odds, has conquered a lake.