The African Great Lakes are a series of vast lakes in and around the East African Rift. They hold around 25 per cent of the Earth’s unfrozen surface freshwater and contain more than 10 per cent of all species of freshwater fish in the world.
The lakes are an example of adaptive radiation, where an animal or plant rapidly diversifies from an ancestral species into a wide variety of types.
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The African Great Lakes formed around 10 million years ago after the East African rift system began to separate and became incredibly geographically isolated, leading to this diversification of fish species.
Experts believe that this formation, as well as the extreme depth of some of the Great African Lakes, has caused these lakes to act more like oceans. Lake Tanganyika, in particular, supports freshwater creatures such as jellyfish, crabs and sponges that resemble their marine counterparts.
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What are the African Great Lakes?
The African Great Lakes are a group of seven lakes in East Africa.
- Lake Victoria – 26,828 square miles (69,484 square kilometres)
- Lake Tanganyika – 12,700 square miles (32,900 square kilometres)
- Lake Malawi (also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique) – 11,430 square miles (29,604 square kilometres)
- Lake Turkana – 2,473 square miles (6,405 square kilometres)
- Lake Albert – 2,160 square miles (5,600 square kilometres)
- Lake Kivu – 1,040 square miles (2,700 square kilometres)
- Lake Edward – 970 square miles (2,500 square kilometres) when combined with the interconnected Lake George
What’s the largest lake in Africa?
Lake Victoria is the largest lake in Africa, measuring 26,828 square miles (69,484 square kilometres). It lies mainly in Tanzania and Uganda but also borders Kenya. It feeds the world’s longest river, the River Nile.
The lake is home to more than 200 species of fish – and it’s these fish that make it one of the deadliest lakes on Earth. Up to 1,500 fishers drown each year while searching for native Lake Victoria sardines.
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What’s the deepest lake in Africa?
Lake Tanganyika is 4,710 feet (1,436 metres) deep. It’s so deep that you could stack four Eiffel Towers on top of one another and they still wouldn’t quite reach the top.
But as there is no oxygen below the 240-metre mark, it’s unlikely that any creatures roam the bottom of the lake. Instead, Lake Tanganyika is best known for its cichlids, with more than 200 species living there. More than 95 per cent of them are endemic.
What’s the smallest lake in Africa?
Lake Edward has a surface area of 970 square miles (2,500 square kilometres) when combined with Lake George. The two are connected by the Kazinga Channel and are also fed by the Rutshuru River.
The Lake Edward-George basin contains 60 cichlid species and 90 per cent of these aren’t found anywhere else on Earth.
