Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Aulonocara auditor

Aulonocara auditor "Vua"

Vua — VOO-ah (approx.)

The fish

How this cichlid is built, and everything about how it lives, eats and breeds, is shared with the species — this page doesn't repeat it.

Read the full Aulonocara auditor account →

Specific to Vua

  • Collection locality & coordinates
  • Local coloration — best judged from the living-fish photo
  • Kept as a single-provenance line, never crossed with other collection points

Care facts below are the species' — shared with Aulonocara auditor.

IUCNDATA DEFICIENT · 2018
DDnot on the EX–LC scale
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.1 in8 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth10–49 ft3–15 m
DietPresumed sand-sifting invertivore
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (inferred; genus-typical, undocumented in this species)undocumented; congeners of this size lay a few dozen eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesUnknown for this species — no breeding-coloured male has ever been documented; strong male/female dichromatism is assumed only by analogy with other Aulonocara.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Vua population

Aulonocara auditor "Vua" is the Vua population of Aulonocara auditor, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the far northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Aulonocara auditor, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Vua fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Aulonocara auditor is one of Lake Malawi's most enigmatic peacock cichlids — a small, sand-dwelling fish named for the slightly swollen ear region Ethelwynn Trewavas noticed in the single specimen she described in 1935. Nearly a century later it is still known with certainty only from that holotype, taken at Vua in the lake's far northwest, and it has never been reliably collected or photographed alive since. Fish once identified as Aulonocara auditor in the wild and in the trade have largely turned out to be a separate species, Aulonocara aquilonium, leaving the true auditor a name attached to a museum jar rather than a living, observed animal. The IUCN lists it as Data Deficient for exactly that reason: there is almost nothing to assess.

Full Aulonocara auditor account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Aulonocara auditor "Vua"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Aulonocara auditor (Trewavas 1935); original Trematocranus auditor, syntype BMNH 1935.6.14.2238, type locality Vua
  3. FishBase — Aulonocara auditor
  4. malawi.si — Aulonocara auditor 'Vua' (M.K. Oliver / Konings species database; diagnostic features, placement uncertainty, never recognised in field/trade)
  5. malawi.si — Aulonocara aquilonium (notes that this species has been exported under the name A. auditor)
  6. Konings, A. (1996) — 'Aulonocara auditor (Trewavas, 1935)', Cichlid Room Companion (field observations later reassigned to A. aquilonium)