Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Aulonocara rostratum

Aulonocara rostratum "Chimwalani Reef"

Chimwalani Reef — cheem-wah-LAH-nee 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 rostratum account →

Specific to Chimwalani 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 rostratum.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size6.7 in17 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth49–131 ft15–40 m
DietSand-sifting invertivore ("sonar-feeding" on buried benthic invertebrates)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (polygynous, lek-spawning)undocumented — wild spawning not closely observed; modest clutches inferred
Sexual dimorphismYesTerritorial males deep metallic blue (deeper blue in the northern population) and larger; females and non-territorial males plain sandy-silver and smaller.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chimwalani Reef population

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

Colour reference: living Chimwalani Reef fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Aulonocara rostratum is among the largest of Lake Malawi's sand-dwelling peacocks — a long-snouted, lake-wide invertivore that hovers over open sand and snaps up prey it cannot see, locating it instead through the enlarged sensory canals that channel its head. Territorial males turn deep metallic blue and excavate spawning craters in the bare sand, defended year-round and conspicuously lacking the raised rim of most haplochromine nests, while drab females forage apart and visit the breeding arenas only to spawn. Trewavas described it twice over from a single variable population, and one of those names — Aulonocara macrochir — is now treated as its synonym.

Full Aulonocara rostratum account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Aulonocara rostratum "Chimwalani 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 (Cichlid Press)
  3. Konings, A. (1995), 'Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat' (2nd ed., Cichlid Press) — the foremost Lake Malawi field reference
  4. Trewavas, E. (1935), 'A synopsis of the cichlid fishes of Lake Nyasa', Annals and Magazine of Natural History (10) 16:65-118 (original description of Aulonocara rostrata and A. macrochir)
  5. Eccles, D.H. & Trewavas, E. (1989), 'Malawian cichlid fishes: the classification of some haplochromine genera' (genus Aulonocara revision; macrochir treatment)
  6. FishBase — Aulonocara rostratum summary