Champsochromis caeruleus "Namalenje Island"Malawi trout
Champsochromis caeruleus (Itungi, Namalenje Island, Nkhata Bay, Usisya)
Namalenje Island — nah-mah-LEHN-jeh 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 Champsochromis caeruleus account →Specific to Namalenje 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 Champsochromis caeruleus.
The Namalenje Island population
Champsochromis caeruleus "Namalenje Island" is the Namalenje Island population of Champsochromis caeruleus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Champsochromis caeruleus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Namalenje Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Champsochromis caeruleus, the "Malawi trout," is one of Lake Malawi's largest and fastest open-water predators — a long, fusiform haplochromine that runs down shoals of the lake's anchovy-like sardine in mid-water like a freshwater pike. Drab and silvery as a juvenile, a dominant male turns a metallic steel-blue with red-tinged scales and trailing fin filaments. Despite its size and the sardine in its diet, it is a maternal mouthbrooder that spawns over the sand, and the IUCN rates it Least Concern across a lake that is itself under mounting strain.
Full Champsochromis caeruleus account →Sources
- malawi.si — Champsochromis caeruleus "Namalenje Island"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Champsochromis caeruleus (orig. Paratilapia caerulea Boulenger 1908; holotype BMNH 1908.10.27.60)
- FishBase — Champsochromis caeruleus summary
- GBIF — Champsochromis caeruleus (Boulenger, 1908) occurrence & taxonomy
- Konings, A. (2007) — Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat, 4th ed., Cichlid Press (diet & breeding observations, incl. Konings 1995c)
- Boulenger, G. A. (1908) — Diagnoses of new fishes discovered by Capt. E. L. Rhoades in Lake Nyassa. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (8) 2(9):238-243 (original description, p. 240) — CoF reference 575
- IUCN Red List — Champsochromis caeruleus "Namalenje Island"