Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Aulonocara stonemani

Aulonocara stonemani "South East Arm"

South East Arm — SOWTH EEST ARM (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 stonemani account →

Specific to South East Arm

  • 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 stonemani.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size2.4 in6 cm total length
Temperature72–75 °F22–24 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth180–295 ft55–90 m
DietDeep-sediment micro-invertivore (ostracods, chydorid cladocerans)
BreedingPresumed maternal mouthbrooder (genus-wide; not documented for this species)unrecorded; likely small (a few to ~2 dozen eggs for its size)
Sexual dimorphismYesDocumented from preserved nuptial-coloured males (malawi.si): breeding males show 5-6 dark bars, a yellow-spotted dorsal with black-tipped white lappets, black pelvic fins and a black-margined anal fin with pale egg-spots; females/non-nuptial fish are plain. As in all Aulonocara, males are the coloured sex and females cryptic, but live wild dichromatism has not been observed directly.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The South East Arm population

Aulonocara stonemani "South East Arm" is the South East Arm population of Aulonocara stonemani, 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 stonemani, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living South East Arm fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Aulonocara stonemani is a diminutive, slender peacock cichlid that lives where almost no other member of its genus does: in the cold, dark, sediment-floored deep water of Lake Malawi's southern arms, trawled from 55 metres down and beyond. At barely 6 cm it is among the smallest Aulonocara, and it is one of the few known almost entirely from preserved specimens dragged up in nets rather than watched by divers. Its very identity has been unsettled for half a century, the species shuffled between three genera as ichthyologists argued over whether a deep-water mud-dweller with a downturned mouth truly belongs among the lake's familiar sand-hovering peacocks.

Full Aulonocara stonemani account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Aulonocara stonemani "South East Arm"
  2. FishBase — Aulonocara stonemani (Burgess & Axelrod, 1973)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — stonemani, Haplochromis (Burgess & Axelrod 1973; holotype USNM 210697; synonymy)
  4. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae): Aulonocara stonemani etymology (John Stoneman)
  5. malawi.si — Aulonocara stonemani 'South East Arm' (M.K. Oliver / Konings species database; type locality, depth, nuptial colour)
  6. Konings, A. (1995) — A review of the sand-dwelling species of the genus Aulonocara, with the description of three new species (genus context)