Taxonomy & naming
Citharinus eburneensis was described by the French ichthyologist Jacques Daget in 1962. The species epithet references Côte d'Ivoire — historically "Ivory Coast" — pointing to the country to which it is endemic. It belongs to the genus Citharinus within the family Citharinidae, a small group of deep-bodied, herbivorous-to-detritivorous African characins sometimes called citharinids or, in older literature, "moonfish" or African dorados; the family sits in the order Characiformes alongside the distantly related Distichodontidae (Distichodus and relatives) and the piranhas and pacus of South America's Serrasalmidae.
The Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer, California Academy of Sciences) governs the valid name and combination for the species; Citharinus is treated as the correct genus assignment and this article does not deviate from it. Citharinus species as a group are notoriously difficult to distinguish from one another on external characters, with dorsal- and anal-fin ray counts among the more reliable diagnostic features — C. eburneensis is recorded with 18–21 dorsal soft rays and 26–30 anal soft rays.
Morphology
Citharinus eburneensis has the classic citharinid profile: a laterally compressed, deep, almost oval body carried on a small head with a short, blunt snout and a small, subterminal mouth suited to grazing rather than seizing prey. FishBase records a maximum size of 7 in standard length, a modest figure that places this species among the smaller members of its genus — nowhere near the size or dentition of a predatory characin.
Colouration is typically a bright, uniform silver over the flanks, consistent with the "moonfish" nickname sometimes applied to the family, without the bold banding or spotting seen in many Distichodus. As with most citharinids, precise field identification between closely related Citharinus species is difficult and usually rests on fin-ray counts and other technical characters rather than colour pattern alone.
Habitat
The species is endemic to coastal river systems of Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa. It was formerly recorded from the Bia River but disappeared from that reach following construction of the Lake Ayamé dam, a change that fragmented and altered flow through the Bia river–lake system in the southeastern part of the country. FishBase also lists the species as anadromous, implying some capacity for freshwater–brackish or freshwater–estuarine movement typical of a number of West African coastal-river fishes, though the specifics of that migratory behaviour are not well documented for this species.
Water across West African Guinea–Congo coastal basins of this kind is generally warm, soft to moderately hard, and slightly acidic to neutral; regional climate data point to temperatures in the roughly 75–82 °F range, though no precise, species-specific water chemistry has been published for C. eburneensis and any figures should be treated as regional inference rather than a documented account.
Feeding
Citharinus eburneensis is a grazer, not a predator. FishBase records a trophic level of 2.4, consistent with a herbivorous-to-detritivorous diet — the citharinid pattern of browsing algae, detritus and soft organic material from riverbed and vegetation surfaces, in keeping with the small, comb-like teeth typical of the genus. Citharinids in general are versatile, adaptable feeders where they are kept, taking flake, frozen foods such as bloodworm, brine shrimp and daphnia, alongside vegetable matter like spirulina and blanched greens.
No species-specific feeding study for C. eburneensis is available beyond the trophic-level figure, so the diet described here is inferred from its genus and family rather than from direct observation of this species in the wild or in captivity.
Mating
No courtship or pairing behaviour has been documented for Citharinus eburneensis. Citharinids as a family are not known for elaborate courtship displays, and nothing in the available literature describes sexual dimorphism, colour change, or pairing behaviour for this species. Data are sparse enough that this section is necessarily brief rather than speculative.
Breeding
Breeding in Citharinus, including this species, is not established in captivity. General accounts of African citharinid breeding describe egg-scattering behaviour in soft, acidic water for some species in the family, but captive breeding of Citharinus specifically is described as rare and difficult, hampered by the fish's size and specific environmental requirements, and no substrate-nesting or parental-care behaviour has been confirmed for C. eburneensis. Given the complete absence of the species from the aquarium trade, this should be read as an honest gap in the record rather than an untested hypothesis — this is not a fish that gets bred at home.
In the aquarium
Citharinus eburneensis is not a hobby fish. It is essentially unknown in the aquarium trade, has no established husbandry record, and is listed here for completeness rather than as a species a keeper is likely to encounter. Where citharinids more broadly do appear in specialist collections, keepers report they need large, well-planted or algae-rich systems that can support grazing behaviour and a mixed diet of vegetable matter and frozen foods, plus the tank volume appropriate to a fish that, while modest for its family at 7 in, is still a deep-bodied, active grazer that outgrows small setups.
Given its extremely restricted native range — a single country's coastal rivers, with a documented local extirpation from the Bia River after damming — any wild-collected specimens reaching the trade would raise real conservation concerns, and this species should not be a target for casual collection or export.
Conservation
The IUCN Red List currently assesses Citharinus eburneensis as Least Concern. The species remains narrowly endemic to Côte d'Ivoire's coastal river systems, and it does have a documented history of local loss — it disappeared from the Bia River after construction of the Lake Ayamé dam fragmented that system — but its overall population across its native range is not currently considered at risk.
C. eburneensis is taken in artisanal and small-scale fisheries in parts of its range, and continued habitat change from damming and land-use pressure remains a factor worth watching in a species with such a limited coastal distribution. With no aquarium trade to speak of, its conservation outlook depends entirely on the health of its native West African coastal rivers rather than on captive populations.