Bi-parental mucus provisioning in the scale-eating cichlid Perissodus microlepis (Cichlidae)

Although parental care is known to occur in a wide range of teleost fishes, postnatal provisioning of nutrition has been documented rarely. Here, we describe a novel example of bi-parental care in a teleost, i.e. mucus-provisioning behaviour in the scale-eating cichlid Perissodus microlepis endemic to Lake Tanganyika. Field observations revealed that young guarded by their parents frequently glanced towards the body surface of both parents....