Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Bathybates leo

Bathybates leo "Kansombo Banks"

Kansombo Banks — kahn-SOHM-boh BAHNKS (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 Bathybates leo account →

Specific to Kansombo Banks

  • 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 Bathybates leo.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2025
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size10.2 in26 cm total length
Temperature75–81 °F24–27 °C
pH8.6–9.3alkaline
Depth33–656 ft10–200 m
DietPiscivore; pelagic, feeds mainly on the endemic clupeids (Stolothrissa tanganicae, Limnothrissa miodon); trophic level ~4.2
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderUndocumented for the species; genus-typical bathybatine broods are modest (tens of eggs)
Sexual dimorphismYesSexes differ in flank patterning as in other pelagic Bathybates, though a detailed field description specific to B. leo is sparse
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Kansombo Banks population

Bathybates leo "Kansombo Banks" is the Kansombo Banks population of Bathybates leo, a geographic colour form from the Democratic Republic of the Congo coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Bathybates leo, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Kansombo Banks fish at tanganyika.si →

About the species

Bathybates leo is a streamlined, open-water predatory cichlid found only in Lake Tanganyika, where it hunts the silvery clupeid "sardines" that drive the lake's vast pelagic fishery. One of roughly seven members of the deepwater tribe Bathybatini, it abandons the rocky-shore world most aquarium cichlids inhabit and instead patrols the blue, oxygenated middle of the lake. It is essentially never kept by hobbyists, but it is a revealing window into how Tanganyika's cichlid radiation colonized open water that elsewhere belongs to herrings and perches.

Full Bathybates leo account →

Sources

  1. tanganyika.si — Bathybates leo "Kansombo Banks"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Bathybates leo Poll, 1956
  3. FishBase — Bathybates leo summary
  4. GBIF — Bathybates leo occurrence search
  5. IRMNG — genus Bathybates Boulenger, 1898
  6. Kirchberger et al. 2012 — Evolutionary History of Lake Tanganyika's Predatory Deepwater Cichlids (PLoS / PMC)