Paratilapia

Paratilapia is a genus of cichlids generally restricted to Madagascar. These are large, dark cichlids densely covered in light spots. An additional very poorly known species from the Congo River basin in mainland Africa is sometimes also placed in the genus, but this is highly questionable and arguably it is better placed in the "wastebasket genus" Haplochromis for the time being.

== Taxonomy == Phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequence and morphological data have hitherto been unable to resolve the relationships of the genus to satisfaction. For example, sequence data from mtDNA 16S rRNA and COI disagree regarding its placement, and the standard hypothesis among cichlids - that this is due to hybridization effects - can obviously not apply here as both genes are mitochondrial and affected by hybrid introgression in the same way.