Lake Malawi National Park

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Lake Malawi National Park
Lake malawi national park.jpg
Children playing of the shore of Lake Malawi
Malawi relief location map.jpg
Red pog.svg
Location Central and Southern Regions, Malawi
Coordinates 14°02′S34°53′E / 14.033°S 34.883°E / -14.033; 34.883
Area94 km²
EstablishedNovember 24, 1980
TypeNatural
Criteriavii, ix, x
Designated1984 (8th session)
Reference no. 289
Region Africa

Lake Malawi National Park is a national park at the southern end of Lake Malawi in Malawi, Southeast Africa. It is the only national park in Malawi that was created with the purpose of protecting fish and aquatic habitats. Despite this being its main purpose, Lake Malawi National Park includes a fair amount of land, including a headland, the foreshore and several small rocky islands in Lake Malawi.

Contents

Lake Malawi National Park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, being of "global importance for biodiversity conservation due particularly to its fish diversity." This fish diversity is remarkable because the mbuna , as the cichlid fish are known locally, provide an outstanding example of evolution at work. Other attributes of the park include the outstanding natural beauty of the area, with its craggy landscape contrasting with the clear waters of the lake.

The site

Lake Malawi is in the Great Rift Valley. The lake is 500 m (1,640 ft) above sea level and, with a depth of 700 m (2,300 ft) in places, is one of the deepest lakes in the world. [1] Lake Malawi National Park consists of approximately 95 km2 (37 sq mi) of land and water at the southern end of the lake. The park includes most of the Nankumbu Peninsula, a mountainous headland that projects northwards into the lake terminating in Cape Maclear, the surrounding areas of water (aquatic zone of the property extends for just 100 meters (330 feet) from the lake shore and covers just 0.02% of the lake’s total area), Mwenya Hills, Nkhudzi Hills, Nkhudzi Spit, and 13 islands: Otter, Domwe, Thumbi West, Mumbo, Zimbabwe, Thumbi East, Mpanda, Boadzulu, Chinyankhwazi Rock, Chinyamwezi Rock, Nankoma, Maleri, and Nakantenga. [2] The peninsula rises steeply from the foreshore to the Nkhunguni Peak 1,143 m (3,750 ft) in the west and the Dzimwe Peak 963 m (3,160 ft) in the east. The slopes are clad in dense forests. [3] There are few inhabitants on the mountainous part of the peninsula, but there are several fishing villages on the more level parts of the foreshore, the largest being Chembe, close to Cape Maclear. These villages are inside the park but are not part of it. [3]

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Lake Malawi National Park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. The criteria under which it qualifies are: Criterion (vii), the natural beauty of the lake beneath the escarpment of the Great African Rift Valley; Criterion (ix), the importance of the lake because of the adaptive radiation and speciation that has taken place there among the cichlid fish population, over 350 species of which are present in the park, almost all of them endemic; and Criterion (x), the global importance of the park for the conservation of biodiversity, both for its freshwater fish populations (perhaps 1000 species) and for the variety of other animal life including birds, mammals and reptiles. [4]

Fauna

Lake Malawi was formed several million years ago, and the water level has fluctuated greatly over the millennia. [5] This has made a number of different niches available to the cichlids (known locally as mbuna ) and other fish living there, which have adapted to different habitats and adopted different lifestyles as part of an evolutionary radiation of a similar sort to the adaptation of finches that Charles Darwin observed on the Galápagos Islands. Various estimates have been made as to how many species of cichlid there are in Lake Malawi, with 700 being an acceptable estimate. Nearly all of these species are endemic, and some have minute ranges: a bay, a rocky islet or a few hundred metres of shoreline. Many are not even known to science and remain yet to be described. [6]

The park is also home to mammals including chacma baboons, vervet monkeys, hippopotamuses, leopards, common duikers, bushbucks, greater kudus, and klipspringers. Also to be seen are crocodiles, African fish eagles, and white-breasted cormorants as well as wading birds, kingfishers, hornbills, nightjars, kestrels, swallow-tailed bee-eaters, and many other species of birds. [7]

History

Dr. David Livingstone was the first European to see Lake Nyassa, as it was then called, in 1859, and by 1875 the Scottish Presbyterian Church had set up a mission on Cape Maclear. A large baobab tree, purportedly over 800 years old, is said to have been a favourite of Livingstone as a place where he could give sermons and speak with other missionaries. The graves of five early missionaries are also in the park. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geography of Malawi</span> Geographical features of Malawi

Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa. It is wholly within the tropics; from about 9°30S at its northernmost point to about 17°S at the southernmost tip. The country occupies a thin strip of land between Zambia and Mozambique, extending southwards into Mozambique along the valley of the Shire River. In the north and north east it also shares a border with Tanzania. Malawi is connected by rail to the Mozambican ports of Nacala and Beira. It lies between latitudes 9° and 18°S, and longitudes 32° and 36°E.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Malawi</span> African Great Lake

Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Great Lakes</span> Series of lakes in the Rift Valley

The African Great Lakes are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. The series includes Lake Victoria, the third-largest freshwater lake in the world by area; Lake Tanganyika, the world's second-largest freshwater lake by volume and depth; Lake Malawi, the world's eighth-largest freshwater lake by area; and Lake Turkana, the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake. Collectively, they contain 31,000 km3 (7,400 cu mi) of water, which is more than either Lake Baikal or the North American Great Lakes. This total constitutes about 25% of the planet's unfrozen surface fresh water. The large rift lakes of Africa are the ancient home of great biodiversity, and 10% of the world's fish species live in this region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rift Valley lakes</span> Group of lakes in the East African Rift

The Rift Valley lakes are a series of lakes in the East African Rift valley that runs through eastern Africa from Ethiopia in the north to Malawi in the south, and includes the African Great Lakes in the south. These include some of the world's oldest lakes, deepest lakes, largest lakes by area, and largest lakes by volume. Many are freshwater ecoregions of great biodiversity, while others are alkaline "soda lakes" supporting highly specialised organisms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Manyara</span> Alkaline lake in Arusha Region, Tanzania

Lake Manyara is a lake located in Monduli District of Arusha Region, Tanzania and is the seventh-largest lake of Tanzania by surface area, at 470-square-kilometre (180 sq mi). It is a shallow, alkaline lake in the Natron-Manyara-Balangida branch of the East African Rift. The northwest quadrant of the lake is included within Lake Manyara National Park and it is part of the Lake Manyara Biosphere Reserve, established in 1981 by UNESCO as part of its Man and the Biosphere Programme.

<i>Labidochromis caeruleus</i> Species of fish endemic to part of Lake Malawi

Labidochromis caeruleus is a species of cichlid endemic to the central western coastal region of Lake Malawi in East Africa. It is also known as lemon yellow lab, the blue streak hap, the electric yellow or yellow prince, depending on the colour morph. A naturally occurring yellow-coloured variant from Lion's Cove is one of the most popular cichlids amongst aquarium hobbyists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mbuna</span> Common name for several species of fish

Mbuna is the common name for a large group of African cichlids from Lake Malawi, and are members of the haplochromine family. The name mbuna means "rockfish" in the language of the Tonga people of Malawi. As the name implies, most mbuna are cichlids that live among the piles of rocks and along the rocky shores of Lake Malawi, as opposed to the utaka, cichlids that live in the open water or on sandy shores or soft substrates. Some species of mbuna are highly sexually dimorphic, although many are not. Almost all of the cichlid species of Lake Malawi, including mbuna and non mbuna such as the utaka, are believed to have descended from one or a very few species that became isolated in the lake. With rising water levels, new habitats could be colonized and the many isolated rocky outcrops allowed new mbuna species to form. Their striking colors, intriguing behavioral characteristics, and relative hardiness make them very popular despite their unique demands for the home aquarist.

<i>Maylandia</i> Genus of fishes

Maylandia or Metriaclima is a genus of haplochromine cichlids endemic to Lake Malawi in East Africa. They belong to the mbuna (rock-dwelling) haplochromines.

Ethelwynn Trewavas was an ichthyologist at the British Museum of Natural History. She was known for her work on the families Cichlidae and Sciaenidae. She worked with Charles Tate Regan, another ichthyologist and taxonomist.

<i>Iodotropheus</i> Genus of fishes

Iodotropheus is a small genus of cichlids endemic to Lake Malawi in east Africa. The genus is distinguished from other genera of mbuna by the upper lip which is usually connected medially to the skin of the snout by a frenum; by its small, terminal mouth; by the outer teeth of both jaws, which are unequally bicuspid and loosely spaced, the tooth shafts inclined slightly toward the jaw symphysis; by the anterior teeth of the upper jaw being much longer and more robust than the lateral and posterior teeth. The rusty cichlid or lavender mbuna, Iodotropheus sprengerae is the most commonly encountered member of the genus in the aquarium trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kampango</span> Species of fish

The kampango or kampoyo is a critically endangered species of large and predatory bagrid catfish that is endemic to Lake Malawi, Lake Malombe and the upper Shire River in Africa. It prefers areas near rocks in water shallower than 50 m (160 ft), but it also occurs deeper and over a sandy or muddy bottom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haplochromine</span> Tribe of fishes

The haplochromine cichlids are a tribe of cichlids in subfamily Pseudocrenilabrinae called Haplochromini. This group includes the type genus (Haplochromis) plus a number of closely related genera such as Aulonocara, Astatotilapia, and Chilotilapia. They are endemic to eastern, southern and northern Africa, except for Astatotilapia flaviijosephi in the Middle East. A common name in a scientific context is East African cichlids – while they are not restricted to that region, they are the dominant Cichlidae there. This tribe was extensively studied by Ethelwynn Trewavas, who made major reviews in 1935 and 1989, at the beginning and at the end of her career in ichthyology. Even today, numerous new species are being described each year.

<i>Nimbochromis polystigma</i> Species of fish

Nimbochromis polystigma is a species of cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, in the Great Rift Valley system of Africa. This species prefers areas with rock/sand substrate or areas with plentiful vegetation. It can grow to a length of 23 centimetres (9.1 in) TL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape Maclear</span> Place in Southern Region, Malawi

Cape Maclear or Chembe is a town in the Mangochi District of Malawi's Southern Region. The town, on the Nankumba Peninsula, is on the southern shore of Lake Malawi and is the busiest resort on Lake Malawi. Cape Maclear is close to the islands of Domwe, Thumbwe and Mumbo Island on Lake Malawi, and is in Lake Malawi National Park.

<i>Pseudotropheus johannii</i> Species of fish

Pseudotropheus johannii or the bluegray mbuna is an African freshwater fish from the family Cichlidae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zebra mbuna</span> Species of fish

The zebra mbuna is a species of cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi in Africa. This species can reach a length of 11.3 cm (4.4 in). It feeds on aufwuchs, a surface layer of mostly algal material that grows on rocks. This cichlid is a mouthbrooder and the female broods the eggs in her mouth for about three weeks. This fish can sometimes be found in the aquarium trade.

<i>Trematocranus placodon</i> Species of fish

Trematocranus placodon is a species of cichlid fish endemic to Lake Malawi, Lake Malombe and the upper reaches of the Shire River in Africa. It is mainly a shallow-water species that prefers to occupy areas with patches of Vallisneria, but it can occur as deep as 31 m (102 ft). It can reach a total length of up to 25 cm (9.8 in).

Bulinus nyassanus is a species of small air-breathing freshwater snail with a sinistral shell, an aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Planorbidae, the ramshorn snails and their allies. This species is endemic to Lake Malawi in Africa, where found both in shallow and relatively deep water. Its shell generally reached a size of up to around 14 mm × 11 mm.

Malawi, officially known as the Republic of Malawi, is a country located in southeastern Africa. The country is also referred to as "The Warm Heart of Africa", due to the friendliness of the people.

<i>Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus</i> Species of fish

Hemitaeniochromis brachyrhynchus is a species of fish in the family Cichlidae. Its specific epithet brachyrhynchus refers to the most distinctive characteristic of this species, the reduced length of the head in front of the eye. Prior to the formal description of this species in 2012, the specimen which became the paratype was provisionally called Hemitaeniochromis sp. 'insignis big eye' ; however, the species has no accepted common name.

References

  1. ↑ Philip's (1994). Atlas of the World. Reed International. pp. 106–107. ISBN   0-540-05831-9.
  2. ↑ "Report on the Reactive Monitoring Mission to Lake Malawi National Park (Malawi), 30 March - 4 April 2014". UNESCO. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  3. 1 2 Philip Briggs (2016). Malawi. Bradt Travel Guides. pp. 133–145. ISBN   978-1-78477-014-3.
  4. ↑ "Lake Malawi National Park". UNESCO. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  5. ↑ Delvaux, D. (1995). "Age of Lake Malawi (Nyasa) and water level fluctuations". Mus R Afr Centr Tervuren (Belg) Dept Geol Min Rapp: 99–108.
  6. ↑ Turner, G.F.; Seehausen, O.; Knight, M.E.; Allender, C.J.; Robinson, R.L. (2001). "How many species of cichlid fishes are there in African lakes?". Molecular Ecology. 10 (3): 793–806. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-294x.2001.01200.x . PMID   11298988. S2CID   12925712.
  7. ↑ Riley, Laura; Riley, William (2005). Nature's Strongholds: The World's Great Wildlife Reserves. Princeton University Press. p. 656. ISBN   0-691-12219-9.
  8. ↑ Williams, Lizzie (2005). Africa Overland. Struik. p. 135. ISBN   978-1-77007-187-2.
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