Taxonomy & naming
Alticorpus sp. "Bicuspid Small-scale" is not a formally described species. It has no scientific name of its own, no describing author, no year of publication, and no entry in Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes. It belongs to Alticorpus, a genus of deep-water Lake Malawi cichlids erected by Jay Stauffer and Kenneth McKaye in 1988 around the type species Alticorpus mentale, and currently containing about six valid, formally described species (among them A. macrocleithrum, A. mentale, A. peterdaviesi, A. profundicola and A. geoffreyi), all confined to the deep, offshore, soft-bottomed water of the lake rather than the rocky shallows of the mbuna or the weedy margins of the shore-associated haps. A cluster of bicuspid-toothed forms has been recorded from the Senga Bay area on the central-western shore, and this population is distinguished from others there, such as Alticorpus sp. "Bicuspid Bis," by a further working character noted in field references - a smaller, more numerous scale count along the flank than other bicuspid-toothed Alticorpus material from the same site. Because so many deep-water Alticorpus specimens taken by trawl cannot be confidently matched to a described species using external anatomy alone, field workers and trawl-survey literature have long grouped unassigned material by working characters such as outer-jaw tooth shape - unicuspid, bicuspid (two-pointed) or tricuspid - alongside locality and depth. Alticorpus sp. "Bicuspid Small-scale" is one such bicuspid-toothed, Senga Bay-recorded population, recognised informally through the malawi.si database and Ad Konings's field surveys rather than through a taxonomic publication. Until a formal revision addresses the group, no authority or date should be attached to it.
Morphology
This form carries the standard Alticorpus build: a fusiform, moderately deep, laterally compressed body with the genus's characteristic head, its lateral-line canals widened into open sensory pits across the snout, cheek and lower jaw. Like other members of the informal bicuspid group, its outer-jaw teeth end in two points rather than one or three. What distinguishes this population in field references is scalation: a smaller, more numerous scale count along the body than related bicuspid-toothed Senga Bay material, a meristic character trawl workers use alongside tooth shape and locality to sort otherwise similar deep-water specimens. Colour has not been documented for this population - deep-trawled Alticorpus rarely show the bright breeding dress of shallow-water cichlids - and no published measurements exist specific to it.
Habitat
Alticorpus sp. "Bicuspid Small-scale" is recorded from the Senga Bay area on the central-western shore of Lake Malawi, understood to come from offshore trawl work over open sand and mud rather than the shallow, sandy embayment for which Senga Bay itself is known. Genus-typical depth range for Alticorpus runs from roughly 59–492 ft, with most species concentrated below about 197 ft; the specific depth of this form has not been separately documented. It shares the warm, hard, strongly alkaline water column typical of Lake Malawi, though at depth both light and temperature fall well below surface conditions.
Feeding
This form is presumed to feed as other Alticorpus do: a benthic micro-feeder of the soft offshore floor, using its enlarged cranial sensory pores to locate small invertebrates in or on the sediment where vision counts for little. The genus sits generally at a low trophic level, consistent with a diet of detritus, diatoms and small invertebrates sifted from sand and mud. No feeding study specific to this small-scaled, bicuspid-toothed population has been published; this account follows the documented genus pattern rather than direct observation.
Mating
As with other deep Alticorpus, courtship in this form has never been observed - the fish lives below diving depth and is known only from trawl material. By analogy with the wider Lake Malawi haplochromine flock it is presumed polygynous with no pair bond, males holding spawning sites on or near the soft floor and females moving between them to choose a mate. The lack of documented bright breeding colour fits a fish that pairs in water too dark for the colour-driven courtship of shallow-water relatives.
Breeding
Alticorpus sp. "Bicuspid Small-scale" is treated as a maternal mouthbrooder, consistent with its genus and with the Malawi haplochromine radiation generally. The female is presumed to brood fertilised eggs in her mouth through to free-swimming fry, releasing a small number of comparatively large young. No clutch data have been published for this form specifically; the better-studied congener Alticorpus macrocleithrum has been shown by South West Arm trawl studies to spawn seasonally with clutches on the order of a hundred to a few hundred eggs, a plausible but unconfirmed analogy for this population.
In the aquarium
This form plays no meaningful part in the aquarium hobby. Like other deep Alticorpus it is known from scientific trawl surveys rather than ornamental collection, and the cold, dark, soft-bottomed water it occupies bears no resemblance to a home aquarium. The pressure change of a trawl haul is hard on a deep-bodied cichlid adapted to life well below the photic zone, which is part of why the genus is barely represented in the trade. It is best understood as one of several working populations that trawl and field-survey references use to track the real diversity of deep Alticorpus, rather than as a fish anyone should expect to keep.
Conservation
Alticorpus sp. "Bicuspid Small-scale" has not been evaluated by the IUCN. As an undescribed form it has no Red List status of any kind - an absence that reflects its taxonomy, not its safety in the wild. As a deep, soft-bottom form of the central lake, it sits within the reach of the demersal trawl fishery that works Lake Malawi's offshore waters for food fish, a pressure that bears on deep communities more directly than it does the inshore reef fauna most conservation attention focuses on. Population data for the deep lake are sparse across the board, and no conservation status beyond "not assessed" should be attached to this form.