Tumbi Point
TOOM-bee POYNT (approx.)
The atlas records 18 collection-point forms from Tumbi Point, across 12 genera.
12.3383°S 34.6986°E
Tumbi Point is a headland on Lake Malawi's Mozambican shore, about 6 km south-south-west of Mbweca Rocks.
Where it is
Tumbi Point is on the eastern shore of Lake Malawi, in its central third (198 mi south of the lake's northern tip).
Nearest collection points: Mbweca Rocks 3.4 mi north · Mala Point 9.9 mi north · Kanjindo Rocks 14 mi north
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) (~160 km) — Conductivity 235 µS/cm
Surface temperature here
Across Apr–Nov, monthly means run 76 °F to 81 °F — coolest in Aug. Measured by satellite 1995–2023: the daily median of clear readings within 10 km of the site (1117 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
A caption credited to Ad Konings describes Tumbi Point as lying north of a roughly 45 km stretch of the eastern shoreline made up of sandy beaches and swampy river mouths with no rocky habitat, a stretch that ends at Metangula, where most of the rock-dwelling cichlids are different.
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.