Tilapia is a large genus in the family Cichlidae (cichlids). It
belongs to the tribe Tilapiini in the subfamily
Pseudocrenilabrinae. Many species in this tribe is commonly
referred to as tilapia in every day speech even though they
belong to other genera than Tilapia. The name tilapia is a
latinization of thiape, the Tswana word for fish. Tswana is an
African language belonging to the Bantu language group. The
genus name Tilapia was introduced in 1840 by Andrew Smith, a
Scottish zoologist and explorer. The genus Tilapia is home to a
lot of popular food fishes that are grown in aquacultures world
wide. All Tilapia species are native to Africa, but they have
now been introduced to many other parts of the world. When
released into the wild, they can cause problems for the local
ecosystem. The genus Tilapia currently contains 40 described
species. The genus used to be even larger, but many species have
been moved to the genera Oreochromis and Sarotherodon. Recent
studies indicate that even more species might be m