Family Cichlidae Bonaparte 1835 (Fig. 4C). Cichlids; Mojarras, Congos, Burras, Chogorras, Tilapias Description: Body shape quite variable, mostly moderately deep and compressed; up to 80 cm in length, usually less than 20 cm; a single nostril on each side; lateral line interrupted, usually with 20–50 scales (but number may exceed 100 in some taxa); usually 7–25 spines and 5–30 soft rays in the dorsal fin; anal fin with usually with 3–15 spines and 4–15 soft rays (Nelson et al. 2016, Angulo et al. 2021). Distribution: Freshwater and occasionally in brackish water; Central and South America (one species extending north to Texas), West Indies, Africa, Madagascar, Israel, Syria, coastal India, and Sri Lanka (Nelson et al. 2016). Thirteen genera and thirty-five species in Nicaraguan freshwaters.

Published as part of Angulo, Arturo, Betts, Joel T., González-Alemán, Néstor J., Castañeda, Edgar, Berghe, Eric Van Den, Elías, Diego J., Mcmahan, Caleb D. & Matamoros, Wilfredo A., 2023, Continental fishes of Nicaragua: diversity, distribution and conservation status; with an annotated and illustrated checklist of species and an identification guide to families, pp. 1-89 in Zootaxa 5376 (1) on page 47, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5376.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/10208788