Aulonocara stuartgranti "Malopa"Grant's peacock
Aulonocara stuartgranti (Border, Chesese, Chewere, Chiloelo, Chilucha Reef, Chilumba, Chimwalani Reef, Chinuni, Chiofu, Chirwa Island, Chisanga Point, Chitimba Bay, Chiwindi, Cobwe, Domwe Island, Gallireya Reef, Gome, Hai Reef, Hongi Island, Hora Mhango, Kande Island, Lions Cove, Liutche, Londo Bay, Lundo, Lundo Island, Luwala Reef, Maison Reef, Malopa, Mara Rocks, Masinje, Mbowe Island, Mdoka, Mdowa, Metangula, Mitande Reef (Rocks), Mkondowe, Mundola Point, Nametumbwe, Ngara, Nkhata Bay, Nkhungu Reef, Ntekete, Ntumba, Ruarwe, Sanga, Tchinga Reef, Thumbi West Island, Tumbi Point, Undu Reef, Usisya, Wikihi)
Malopa — mah-LOH-pah (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 stuartgranti account →Specific to Malopa
- 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 stuartgranti.
The Malopa population
Aulonocara stuartgranti "Malopa" is the Malopa population of Aulonocara stuartgranti, 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 stuartgranti, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Malopa fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Aulonocara stuartgranti, known in the hobby as Grant's peacock, is a maternal mouthbrooding cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi and one of the most familiar faces in the African-cichlid hobby. It is the archetypal "peacock": a sand-and-rock fish that hovers a few millimeters above the bottom and detects buried invertebrates with the enlarged lateral-line canals pitting its lower jaw — a sixth-sense feeding system confirmed in the lab on this very species. Across the lake it splits into dozens of vividly distinct geographic colour forms, from the orange-tailed Ngara "flametail" to the blue Usisya and Cobue, which is exactly why it is both beloved and a perennial hybridization headache for keepers.
Full Aulonocara stuartgranti account →Sources
- malawi.si — Aulonocara stuartgranti "Malopa"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Aulonocara stuartgranti (species record)
- FishBase — Aulonocara stuartgranti (Meyer & Riehl, 1985) summary
- GBIF — Aulonocara stuartgranti occurrence records
- malawi.si (Stuart M. Grant / M.K. Oliver, The Cichlid Fishes of Lake Malaŵi) — Aulonocara and its location variants
- Ad Konings — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat (Cichlid Press; foremost authority on Lake Malawi Aulonocara and their geographic colour forms)
- IUCN Red List — Aulonocara stuartgranti "Malopa"