area of Lake Victoria increased by 15% flooding lakeside communities. Bathymetry The lake is considered a shallow lake considering its large geographic area with a maximum depth of approximately and an average depth of . A 2016 project digitized ten-thousand points and created the first true bathymetric map of the lake. The deepest part of the lake is offset to the east of the lake near Kenya and the lake is generally shallower in the west along the Ugandan shoreline and the south along the Tanzanian shoreline. Native wildlife Mammals Many mammal species live in the region of Lake Victoria, and some of these are closely associated with the lake itself and the nearby wetlands. Among these are the hippopotamus, African clawless otter, spotted-necked otter, marsh mongoose, sitatunga, bohor reedbuck, defassa waterbuck, cane rats, and giant otter shrew. Reptiles Lake Victoria and its wetlands has a large population of Nile crocodiles, as well as African helmeted turtles, variable mud turtles, and Williams' mud turtle. The Williams' mud turtle is restricted to Lake Victoria and other lakes, rivers, and swamps in the upper Nile basin. Cichlid fish Lake Victoria formerly was very rich in fish, including many endemics, but a high percentage of these became extinct since the 1940s. The main group in Lake Victoria is the haplochromine cichlids (Haplochromis sensu lato) with more than 500 species, almost all endemic, and including an estimated 300 that still are undescribed. This is far more species of fish than any other lake in the world, except Lake Malawi. These are the result of a rapid adaptive radiation in the last circa 15,000 years. Their extraordinary diversity and speed of evolution have been the subjects for many scientists studying the forces that drive the richness of life everywhere. The Victoria haplochromines are part of an older group of more than 700 closely related species, also including those of several smaller lakes in the region, notably Kyoga, Edward–George, Albert, and Kivu. Most of these lakes are relatively shallow (like Victoria) and part of the present-day upper Nile basin. The exception is Lake Kivu, which is part of the present-day Congo River basin, but is believed to have been connected to Lakes Edward and Victoria by rivers until the uplifting of parts of the East African Rift. This deep lake may have functioned as an "evolutionary reservoir" for this haplochromine group in periods where other shallower