Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube"

Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube" "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 Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube" 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 Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube".

CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5 in12.5 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Depth131–722 ft40–220 m
DietDeep-water zooplanktivore (complex-typical; Chaoborus and other insect larvae, small crustaceans, diatoms)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (presumed, complex-typical)Not documented for this lineage; the wider genus is notably low-fecundity, often only 1-2 well-developed fry per brood in better-studied congeners
Sexual dimorphismYesDefined chiefly by male breeding-dress pattern: ripe males in the macrops complex turn dark/near-black with a white dorsal-fin margin whose exact form distinguishes this lineage from its close relatives, though the precise diagnostic pattern for 'ngulube' has not been published in accessible detail; females stay plain and silvery.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Nkhata Bay population

Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube" "Nkhata Bay" is the Nkhata Bay population of Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube", a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube", 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

Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube" is an undescribed deep-water cichlid recorded off Nkhata Bay in the northern half of Lake Malawi. It corresponds to what molecular biologists working on Diplotaxodon macrops have called the "macrops ngulube" lineage — one of at least three genetically distinct, reproductively isolated forms hiding inside what field workers once treated as a single species, distinguished from its close relatives not by anything visible on a museum specimen but by the pattern a male wears while displaying in the near-darkness of the lake's deep twilight zone.

Full Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube" account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Diplotaxodon sp. "Ngulube" "Nkhata Bay"
  2. malawi.si — Diplotaxodon species and locality database
  3. Genner, M.J. et al. (2007). Reproductive isolation among deep-water cichlid fishes of Lake Malawi differing in monochromatic male breeding dress. Mol. Ecol. 16:651-662
  4. Hahn, C., Genner, M.J., Turner, G.F. & Joyce, D.A. (2017). The genomic basis of cichlid fish adaptation within the deepwater 'twilight zone' of Lake Malawi. Evolution Letters 1:184-198
  5. Cichlid Room Companion — Diplotaxodon genus overview (Ad Konings, curator)