Caprichromis orthognathus "Senga Bay"
Senga Bay — SEHN-gah BAY (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 Caprichromis orthognathus account →Specific to Senga Bay
- 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 Caprichromis orthognathus.
The Senga Bay population
Caprichromis orthognathus "Senga Bay" is the Senga Bay population of Caprichromis orthognathus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Caprichromis orthognathus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Senga Bay fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Caprichromis orthognathus is a slim, mid-water haplochromine from Lake Malawi with a mouth tilted sharply upward — a face built for one of the strangest feeding strategies in the lake. It is a paedophage: it rams the underside of a brooding female cichlid's head, forcing her to spit out the larvae she is carrying, and then eats the spilled young. The steeply angled jaw that gives the fish its name is the tool for that head-butt. Few cichlids wear their ecology so plainly on their face.
Full Caprichromis orthognathus account →Sources
- malawi.si — Caprichromis orthognathus "Senga Bay"
- FishBase — Caprichromis orthognathus (SpecCode 2261)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Haplochromis/Caprichromis orthognathus (species record, spid 37895)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — genus Caprichromis (Eccles & Trewavas 1989; type species H. orthognathus)
- FishBase — Caprichromis orthognathus common names list
- GBIF — Caprichromis orthognathus (Trewavas, 1935) occurrence and taxon record