Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Aulonocara brevinidus

Aulonocara brevinidus "Wikihi"

Wikihi — wee-KEE-hee (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 Wikihi

  • 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 Wikihi population

Aulonocara brevinidus "Wikihi" is the Wikihi population of Aulonocara brevinidus, a geographic colour form from the Mozambique coast of Lake Malawi in the 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 Wikihi 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 "Wikihi"
  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)