Callochromis macrops "Mvuna Island"
Mvuna Island — m-VOO-nah EYE-land (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 Callochromis macrops account →Specific to Mvuna Island
- 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 Callochromis macrops.
The Mvuna Island population
Callochromis macrops "Mvuna Island" is the Mvuna Island population of Callochromis macrops, 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 Callochromis macrops, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Mvuna Island fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Callochromis macrops, sometimes traded as the big-eyed mouthbrooder or "red macrops," is a sand-sifting cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, where it works the shallow, sediment-laden bottoms of sheltered bays. It belongs to the tribe Ectodini, the lake's flock of open-sand specialists, and feeds the way a Geophagus does — taking mouthfuls of sand and straining buried invertebrates through its gills. The real spectacle is the breeding male: he raises a turret-shaped sand bower, flushes into electric color, and courts passing females with a folded anal fin that mimics an egg, a sleight-of-hand that draws the female's mouth to where his milt is released. Beautiful and abundant in the wild, it is also one of the most quarrelsome sand cichlids a keeper can take on.
Full Callochromis macrops account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Callochromis macrops "Mvuna Island"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Callochromis macrops (Boulenger, 1898)
- FishBase — Callochromis macrops summary
- GBIF — Fishes of Lake Tanganyika (Callochromis occurrences)
- Morita et al. 2014 — Bower-building behaviour in Tanganyikan cichlids (J. Evolutionary Biology)
- Sefc 2011 — Mating and Parental Care in Lake Tanganyika's Cichlids (Int. J. Evolutionary Biology)