Mormyrus longirostris Peters, 1852

Mormyrus longirostris is a demersal, potamodromous species that is found in caves and muddy areas, it also hides among weeds. It prefers quiet deep water with soft muddy bottoms and is rarely caught in marshy areas. In Lake Malawi this mormyrid is sufficiently common, and large, to be important as human food. It has been reported in Nkhata bay (L. Malawi) to be commonly caught in deep gill nets down to the limits of dissolved oxygen, and appears to prefer the deeper water where possible. It forms shoal (Bell-Cross and Minshull 1988) and feeds on insects and weeds but may also feed on small fishes (Konings 1990), blood worms, small crustaceans and molluscs (Bell-Cross and Minshull 1988). This species is active mainly at night. It breeds during the rainy season, moving upstream in rivers after flood spates have receded. The migrations appear to occur at irregular interval as this fish is not a powerful swimmer and would not be able to cope with very high water current (Bell-Cross and Minshull 1988). Females carry 10,000-70,000 eggs. It can give a mild shock when caught (Skelton 1993).