Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Aulonocara hueseri

Aulonocara hueseri "Maingano Island"

Maingano Island — mah-een-GAH-noh EYE-land (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 hueseri account →

Specific to Maingano Island

  • 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 hueseri.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.1 in7.9 cm standard length
Temperature75–79 °F24–26 °C
pH7.7–8.4alkaline
Depth16–49 ft5–15 m
DietSand-sifting benthic invertivore
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (ovophilic)small (a few dozen eggs); wild fecundity not well documented
Sexual dimorphismYesMales metallic blue with a dark, white-edged dorsal and yellowing flanks; females and juveniles drab grey-brown with faint bars.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Maingano Island population

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

Colour reference: living Maingano Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Aulonocara hueseri is a small sand-dwelling peacock cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, where the population that anchors its name is restricted to the waters around Likoma Island off the lake's eastern shore. Like all peacocks it hunts by hovering over open sand and reading the substrate with the enlarged sensory pores on its lower jaw, then darting down to seize the invertebrates it detects. Males turn a deep metallic blue with an inky, white-edged dorsal fin — the look behind its hobby names 'Night aulonocara' and 'Midnight peacock' — while the drab, barred females shoal in foraging groups nearby.

Full Aulonocara hueseri account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Aulonocara hueseri "Maingano Island"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Aulonocara hueseri (species record; holotype SMF 21138)
  3. FishBase — Aulonocara hueseri (Night aulonocara)
  4. The ETYFish Project — Pseudocrenilabrinae: Aulonocara hueseri etymology (eponym Eberhard Hüser)
  5. Chavula et al. (2023) — Lake Malawi/Niassa/Nyasa basin: status, challenges, and research directions (J. Great Lakes Research)