Cyprichromis zonatus "Chituta Bay"
Chituta Bay — chee-TOO-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 Cyprichromis zonatus account →Specific to Chituta 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 Cyprichromis zonatus.
The Chituta Bay population
Cyprichromis zonatus "Chituta Bay" is the Chituta Bay population of Cyprichromis zonatus, a geographic colour form from the Zambia coast of Lake Tanganyika in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Cyprichromis zonatus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chituta Bay fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Cyprichromis zonatus is a small, slender 'sardine cichlid' endemic to the southeastern shores of Lake Tanganyika, where it drifts in open water above rocky reefs feeding on zooplankton. It is the only member of its genus marked with bold dark vertical bars on the upper body, a feature that earned it the German trade name Tanganjikasee-Zebra. Like its relatives it is a maternal mouthbrooder that defends a three-dimensional territory in the water column rather than a patch of rock, a behavior more reminiscent of a marine reef fish than a typical African cichlid.
Full Cyprichromis zonatus account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Cyprichromis zonatus "Chituta Bay"
- Cyprichromis zonatus - FishBase
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Cyprichromis zonatus
- Takahashi, Hori & Nakaya 2002. New species of Cyprichromis from Lake Tanganyika. Copeia 2002(4):1029-1036
- New Species of Cyprichromis (Perciformes: Cichlidae) from Lake Tanganyika (ResearchGate)
- Takahashi & Hori 2006. Description of a new Cyprichromis (C. coloratus). J. Fish Biology