Diplotaxodon macrops "Chitande Island"
Chitande Island — chee-TAHN-deh 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 Diplotaxodon macrops account →Specific to Chitande 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 Diplotaxodon macrops.
The Chitande Island population
Diplotaxodon macrops "Chitande Island" is the Chitande Island population of Diplotaxodon macrops, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the far northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Diplotaxodon macrops, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chitande Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Diplotaxodon macrops is a small, silvery, big-eyed cichlid that lives out its life in the dim offshore depths of Lake Malawi, far from the rocky shallows most aquarists picture when they think of the lake. Named for its conspicuously large eyes, it belongs to a poorly known deep-water lineage that schools over the open shelf and feeds on zooplankton in a world lit only by faint blue light. It is one of the lake's true "twilight zone" specialists, and almost nobody keeps it in a tank.
Full Diplotaxodon macrops account →Sources
- malawi.si — Diplotaxodon macrops "Chitande Island"
- Diplotaxodon macrops — FishBase summary
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Diplotaxodon macrops
- Diplotaxodon macrops Turner & Stauffer, 1998 — WoRMS / Marine Species Traits
- Diplotaxodon macrops Turner & Stauffer, 1998 (new species) — Plazi TreatmentBank
- Turner & Stauffer (1998), Three new deep water cichlid fishes of the genus Diplotaxodon from Lake Malawi — cited via FishBase ref. 30390