Benthochromis horii "Mahale Mountains NP"
Benthochromis horii (Burundi, Cape Kabogo, Chituta Bay, Jakobsen's Beach, Kala Island, Kambwimba, Kantalamba, Kasanga, Kigoma, Kombe, Lubugwe Bay, Lwili Island, Mahale Mountains NP, Msalaba, Mtosi, Mvuna Island, Samazi, Zambia)
Mahale Mountains NP — mah-HAH-leh moh-oon-TAH-eens NP (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 Benthochromis horii account →Specific to Mahale Mountains NP
- 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 Benthochromis horii.
The Mahale Mountains NP population
Benthochromis horii "Mahale Mountains NP" is the Mahale Mountains NP population of Benthochromis horii, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Benthochromis horii, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Mahale Mountains NP fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Benthochromis horii is a tall, deep-dwelling cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, a graceful planktivore that drifts in dim water tens of meters down where few aquarium fish ever go. Males are arresting—bluish-violet with three luminous light-blue stripes and trailing pelvic and caudal filaments—while females stay a plain silvery grey. Only described in 2008, it absorbed nearly all the fish the hobby had been calling "Benthochromis tricoti" for decades, and it breeds by an oddly delicate strategy: a clutch of just a handful of eggs carried in the mouth for two months or more.
Full Benthochromis horii account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Benthochromis horii "Mahale Mountains NP"
- Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer) — Benthochromis horii
- FishBase — Benthochromis horii summary
- FishBase — Benthochromis horii field guide (size, environment)
- Takahashi, T. (2008). Description of a new cichlid fish species of the genus Benthochromis from Lake Tanganyika. J. Fish Biol. 72(3):603–613
- The taxonomic diversity of the cichlid fish fauna of Lake Tanganyika (ScienceDirect)
- IUCN Red List — Benthochromis horii "Mahale Mountains NP"