Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Copadichromis pleurostigmoides

Copadichromis pleurostigmoides "Nkhata Bay"

Nkhata Bay — n-KAH-tah 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 Copadichromis pleurostigmoides account →

Specific to Nkhata 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 Copadichromis pleurostigmoides.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size6.3 in16 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.5–8.5alkaline
Depth10–98 ft3–30 m
DietUtaka zooplanktivore (open-water animal plankton)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderNot documented for this species; utaka-typical ~30-60 eggs (mean ~49 in the open-water congener C. chrysonotus, Smith 2000)
Sexual dimorphismYesReproductive males turn dark blue to blackish and carry anal-fin egg spots; females and non-territorial males are silvery and flank-spotted.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Nkhata Bay population

Copadichromis pleurostigmoides "Nkhata Bay" is the Nkhata Bay population of Copadichromis pleurostigmoides, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Copadichromis pleurostigmoides, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Nkhata Bay fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Copadichromis pleurostigmoides is a silvery, mid-sized utaka cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, one of the great rift-lake shoals of open-water zooplankton pickers that Malawian fishermen net as "utaka." Described by T.D. Iles in 1960 from Nkhata Bay on the lake's western shore, its species name flags how closely it resembles Copadichromis pleurostigma — the two are flank-spotted look-alikes that long confounded the genus. Like all its kin it is a maternal mouthbrooder, the female carrying her brood alone while the breeding male, flushed dark blue, holds a sand territory on the bottom.

Full Copadichromis pleurostigmoides account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Copadichromis pleurostigmoides "Nkhata Bay"
  2. Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer) — Copadichromis pleurostigmoides (species record, spid 24977)
  3. FishBase — Copadichromis pleurostigmoides summary
  4. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae (Pseudocrenilabrinae a-g): Copadichromis & pleurostigmoides etymology
  5. Iles, T.D. 1960. A group of zooplankton feeders of the genus Haplochromis (Cichlidae) in Lake Nyasa. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (ser. 13) 2(17): 257-280 [original description as Haplochromis pleurostigmoides]
  6. malawi.si (M.K. Oliver / Stuart Grant database) — Copadichromis pleurostigmoides (incl. 'Nkhata Bay' form)