Taiwanee Reef
ty-WAHN-ee REEF (approx.)
The atlas records 20 collection-point forms from Taiwanee Reef, across 14 genera.
11.9572°S 34.5881°E
Taiwanee Reef is an isolated, fully submerged rocky reef in open water north-west of Chizumulu Island — no shoreline at all, just a rock ridge rising from deep water to near the surface, with its own endemic forms.
Where it is
Taiwanee Reef is in open water about 16 mi off the eastern shore, in the central third of Lake Malawi (171 mi south of the lake's northern tip).
Nearest collection points: Linganjala Reef 3.4 mi south · Mkanila Bay 4.2 mi south-east · Machili Island 4.3 mi south
Shore, third and distances are measured from the coordinates above against the lake’s mapped outline.
The water
Lake-wide measured chemistry of Lake Malawi — collection points share their lake's water; site-specific figures are shown only where the literature records them.
Nearest measured station: Salima (south-east shore) (~200 km) — Conductivity 235 µS/cm
This site
Surface temperature here
Across Apr–Nov, monthly means run 76 °F to 82 °F — coolest in Aug. Measured by satellite 1995–2023: the daily median of clear readings within 10 km of the site (1042 clear days). The rainy-season months are usually too cloudy to measure and are left blank.
Temperature: ESA Climate Change Initiative, Lakes_cci v3.0 (Asfour et al. 2026; doi:10.5285/a56dba09df8a42ec9fba8b8c7a5e1f69). Chemistry on this page remains the lake's own.
The site
Because the reef stands alone far from shore, its cichlid populations are isolated in a way mainland shores never are, and several forms — most famously the 'Taiwan Reef' Protomelas of the steveni complex — occur nowhere else. The surrounding open water drops away steeply on all sides.
Its isolation is also why reef-labelled fish command attention in the hobby: the provenance names a genuinely closed population. Collecting here means an open-water dive on a submerged ridge rather than a shoreline operation.
Sources
- Konings, A. (2016). Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat, 5th Edition. Cichlid Press, El Paso.
Each entry below is the population of that species recorded here — the form aquarists keep and breed as a distinct, provenance-labelled line. Crossing forms from different collection points is considered hybridisation in the hobby.