Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Aulonocara brevinidus

Aulonocara brevinidus "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 brevinidus 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 brevinidus.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.7 in9.5 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth59–72 ft18–22 m
DietSand-sifting benthic invertivore — small invertebrates (gut: sand grains, tiny snails, ~1.5-2 cm shrimp-like crustaceans, per Konings 1995)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (polygynous sand-spawner)not reported for this species
Sexual dimorphismYesTerritorial males are blue (the 'blue gold sand') with 7 dark bars below the dorsal; females and non-territorial fish are pale sandy-yellow to silvery and are recognised by distinct yellow spots in the anal fin.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Nkhomo Reef population

Aulonocara brevinidus "Nkhomo Reef" is the Nkhomo Reef population of Aulonocara brevinidus, 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 brevinidus, 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 brevinidus, the "blue gold sand" peacock, is a small sand-dwelling cichlid of Lake Malawi described by Ad Konings in 1995 — one of three new species he named in his review of the genus's open-bottom members. It is a fish of the lake's eastern shore, where territorial males hover over the sand and excavate a spawning pit so unusually shallow — a scrape no deeper than a saucer — that Konings built the name around it. Like all peacocks it carries the genus's signature toolkit: enlarged sensory pores riddling the head, used to "hear" small invertebrates buried in the sediment and snap them up in a quick downward dive.

Full Aulonocara brevinidus account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Aulonocara brevinidus "Nkhomo Reef"
  2. Konings, A. (1995), 'A review of the sand-dwelling species of the genus Aulonocara, with the description of three new species', The Cichlids Yearbook 5:26-36 (original description of A. brevinidus, pp. 33-34)
  3. Konings, A. (1995/2016), 'Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat' (Cichlid Press) — the foremost field reference for Lake Malawi Aulonocara, cited as a Red List taxonomic source
  4. The Cichlid Room Companion / malawi.si — Aulonocara species index (M.K. Oliver, Stuart M. Grant database of Lake Malawi cichlids)
  5. M.K. Oliver, 'The Cichlid Fishes of Lake Malawi, Africa' (malawicichlids.com) — annotated checklist including genus Aulonocara
  6. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Aulonocara brevinidus (species record: holotype MRAC 94-56-P-55, type locality, validity)