Lower Rio Grande
The lower Rio Grande (Río Bravo) of southern Texas and northeastern Mexico — home to Herichthys cyanoguttatus, the Rio Grande cichlid, the only cichlid native to the United States. A hardy substrate-spawner of warm, vegetated reaches, it has spread with warming and now also lives in introduced populations across central Texas and into Louisiana (Hubbs et al.; Page & Burr).
- Maximum depth
- —
- Length
- —
- Mixing regime
- Unknown
- Basin
- Rio Grande / Río Bravo (lower)
- Countries
- United States; Mexico
Where every species has been recorded
10 cichlid species across 5 genera have been georeferenced in the lake, drawn from 913 field and museum records. Switch to satellite imagery, or pick a single species to see exactly where it lives.
Occurrence records: GBIF.org (Global Biodiversity Information Facility). Each point is a georeferenced observation or specimen; positions carry the source dataset's own coordinate precision.
Sources
Every number on this page is traceable to peer-reviewed research.
- GBIF.org (2026). GBIF Occurrence Download — Cichlidae, African rift lakes. Global Biodiversity Information Facility, www.gbif.org. link
A shoreline of separate worlds
Lower Rio Grande does not have one habitat but a mosaic of them, and the boundaries are sharp. A cichlid adapted to grazing algae off boulders may never cross the few metres of open sand to the next reef — which is exactly why so many species here live nowhere else on Earth.
Mapped habitats
Surveyed habitat data for this lake is not loaded yet.