Henk Stander
Stellenbosch University
Aquaculture Division, Department of Animal Sciences
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you
feed him for a lifetime.” Maimonides
T
ilapia is a freshwater fish
species of the family Cichlidae, which is widely distributed in the world. Tilapia is also identified under a number
of different generic names; it can
be called “carpe” in West Africa, “St
Peter’s Fish” in Israel, “bream” in
southern Africa, “mojarra” in Latin
America and, of course, under
many different local names like
“chumbo” in Malawi. Tilapia is
widely believed to be the fish Jesus
fed to a congregation of more than
five thousand. The fish is extremely
hardy, easy to grow and, when
stocked in fish ponds, will survive
without much care. These tough
Tilapia Production System
creatures have adapted to many
different environments. Tilapia was
originally considered for aquaculture as a means of producing cheap
protein as well as the species’ readiness to breed in almost any type of
water body, being omnivorous and
hardy enough for fish farming. Today, tilapia has become one of the
most common farm raised fish in
the world, second only to carp in
terms of total production. Tilapia is
being touted as the major aquaculture resource for the future.
Classification and Natural Distribution:
Taxonomy, or the arrangement of
animals into characteristic groups
Tilapia dam inside tunnel
to aid in their identification, is a
complex subject and can become
extremely detailed. It is sufficient
here to note that tilapia belong to
the family Cichlidae which are the
largest fish family in Africa with
about 900 species described and
many more still to be described.
This family is characterised by all its
members being bilaterally compressed and all having only one pair
of ‘nostrils’ whereas most other
bilaterally compressed families have
two pairs. Tilapia is endemic to Africa, Jordan, and Israel, where more
than 110 species have been identified. However, relatively few species
are commercially important, and
Tilapia Production System