Common names:
Unknown
Lunyolo/Luruli: Ngolobo, Kimenge Lukenyi: Nsulusu Ludope: Kiswala Lango: Menya

Taxonomic tree
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish)
Order: Osteoglossiformes (Fishes with bony tongue)
Family: Mormyridae (fishes with Elephant-like snout)
Genus: Mormyrus
Species: Mormyrus macrocephalus (Worthington, 1929)
Number of Occurrancies: 75

Etymology(based on Scharpf & Lazara, 2018)

• Mormyrus : Greek name of a “littoral fish variously coloured,” probably Striped Sea Bream, Lithognathus mormyrus (Linnaeus 1758), “applied by Linnaeus, not very happily, to fresh-water fishes of a uniform hue”


• macrocephalus:  macro-, long; cephalus, head, referring to longer head compared to M. hasselquistii from the Lower Nile to which it is closely related

Synonyms:click here to view synonyms

Type locality: Lakes Kwania and Kyoga; Victoria Nile, Uganda. Syntypes at British Museum of Natural History (BMNH) 

General identification features for mormyrids: Elongate body; narrow and distinct caudal peduncle; opercular bones hidden beneath the skin, reduced opening of the branchial cabity reduced; small eyes covered by the skin; naked head, its skin thick and well supplied with mucus glands; small cycloid scales; and muscles of the caudal peduncle modified to form an electric organ, and the elaphant-like snout.

Distinguishing characters for the genus

• A characteristic long dorsal fin, ending posteriorly to the anal fin

Distinguishing characters for the species

• Depth of the body contained up to 4-5 times in standard length, and length of the head 3.5-4 times


• Head with straight or slightly convex upper profile; snout about half as long as the post-ocular part of the head


• Mouth terminal; teeth notched, 8-12 and 12-16 in upper and lower jaws, respectively


• Dorsal fin with 62-71 branched rays, its origin in advance of the pelvic fins; 4-5 times longer than anal fin with 17-20 branched rays


• Lateral line with 85-98 scales; 30-34 scales around the caudal peduncal


• Colour is dull bronze above, paler below.

Distribution in Uganda: Lakes Kyoga and Kwania, the Victoria Nile, Aswa river and Teso dams

Occurence: Native

Habitat: Dermersal, common in most areas of the lakes and rivers where it occurs 

Feeding: Predominantly insect larvae, with prawns, oligochaet worms and fishes occuring less frequently.  

Biology: Largest size recorded is 42 cm. There is no information on breeding of species in Uganda. 

Economic importance/End use: The species is not abundant and is only incidental in catches.

IUCN conservation status: click here to view IUCN status

Threats: Damming, fishing

Main references

• Greenwood PH. 1966. The fishes of Uganda. The Uganda Society, Kampala. 131 pages.


• Sharpf C, Lazara J.K. 2018. Fish Name Etymology Database v16. www.etyfish.org