Cynotilapia zebroides "Lupingu"Cobue afra
Cynotilapia zebroides (Cape Kaiser, Chadagha, Charo, Chewere, Chiloelo, Chilumba, Chinuni, Chiofu, Chitande Island, Chitende Cove, Chiwindi, Chiwi Rocks, Chizumulu Island, Cobwe, Gome, Hai Reef, Higga Reef, Hongi Island, Ikombe, Ilala Gap, Jalo Reef, Kakusa, Katale Island, Likoma Island, Linganjala Reef, Londo Bay, Lumbila, Lundo Island, Lundu, Lupingu, Lushununu, Machili Island, Magunga, Maingano Island, Maison Reef, Mala Point, Manda, Mara Rocks, Matambukira Rocks, Matema, Mbahwa, Mbamba Bay, Mbenji Island, Mbowe Island, Mdoka, Mdowa, Metangula, Minos Reef, Mitande Reef (Rocks), Mphanga Rocks, Mumbo Island, Narungu, Ndonga, Ndumbi Rocks, Ngwasi, Njambe, Nkhata Bay, Nkhungu Reef, Nkolongwe, Ntekete, Phowo Point, Pombo Rocks, Puulu, Tchinga Reef, Thumbi Point, Thumbi West Island, Undu Reef)
Lupingu — loo-PEEN-goo (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 Cynotilapia zebroides account →Specific to Lupingu
- 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 Cynotilapia zebroides.
The Lupingu population
Cynotilapia zebroides "Lupingu" is the Lupingu population of Cynotilapia zebroides, a geographic colour form from the Tanzania coast of Lake Malawi in the far northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Cynotilapia zebroides, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Lupingu fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Cynotilapia zebroides is a small, slender, blue-and-black barred rock-dwelling cichlid (a "mbuna") endemic to Africa's Lake Malawi, described by Donald Johnson in 1975. It has been shuffled through several genera over the years — variously placed in Microchromis, Maylandia, Metriaclima, and Pseudotropheus — and most current taxonomists now file it under Cynotilapia, the change driven by its mouthful of slender, single-pointed teeth and its habit of suction-feeding on plankton out in the water column rather than scraping algae off rocks. It looks deceptively like the ubiquitous zebra mbuna of the Maylandia/Metriaclima complex, and that resemblance — combined with an aggressive, fin- and scale-nipping streak and a readiness to hybridize with those fish — is the single most important thing a keeper needs to know about it.
Full Cynotilapia zebroides account →Sources
- malawi.si — Cynotilapia zebroides "Lupingu"
- FishBase — Cynotilapia zebroides (Johnson, 1975)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Cynotilapia zebroides (species record)
- GBIF — Microchromis zebroides (Johnson, 1975) [backbone synonym of Cynotilapia zebroides]
- malawi.si (M.K. Oliver / Ad Konings) — Cynotilapia zebroides 'Jalo Reef'
- malawi.si — Cynotilapia zebroides species index (variants; afra misidentification)
- IUCN Red List — Cynotilapia zebroides "Lupingu"