Aulonocara baenschi "Nkhomo Reef"
Nkhomo Reef — n-KOH-moh REEF (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 baenschi account →Specific to Nkhomo Reef
- 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 baenschi.
The Nkhomo Reef population
Aulonocara baenschi "Nkhomo Reef" is the Nkhomo Reef population of Aulonocara baenschi, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the south-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Aulonocara baenschi, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Nkhomo Reef fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Aulonocara baenschi is a small, sand-and-rock peacock cichlid endemic to a single offshore reef in Lake Malawi, where dominant males glow an unbroken canary yellow above blue-marked faces. It belongs to the lake's distinctive radiation of sensory-pore predators: fish that hover over open sand, listening through enlarged pits on the head for the faint stirrings of invertebrates buried beneath. Long one of the most coveted yellow peacocks in the aquarium trade — sold as the "Benga peacock" or "New Yellow Regal" — its very desirability proved its undoing. By the assessment that matters most, Aulonocara baenschi is now Critically Endangered, reduced from one of the commonest fish on Nkhomo Reef to a scattering of colored males, and the bright, captive-bred stock filling hobby tanks far outnumbers what remains in the wild.
Full Aulonocara baenschi account →Sources
- malawi.si — Aulonocara baenschi "Nkhomo Reef"
- FishBase — Aulonocara baenschi (Nkhomo-benga peacock)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Aulonocara baenschi (species record; holotype SMF 20041)
- The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae): Aulonocara baenschi etymology
- malawi.si — Aulonocara baenschi 'Nkhomo Reef' (M.K. Oliver / Konings species database)
- MalawiCichlids.com — Aulonocara baenschi (M.K. Oliver; type data and eponymy)