Eretmodus cyanostictus "Chimba"
Chimba — CHEEM-bah (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 Eretmodus cyanostictus account →Specific to Chimba
- 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 Eretmodus cyanostictus.
The Chimba population
Eretmodus cyanostictus "Chimba" is the Chimba population of Eretmodus cyanostictus, a geographic colour form from the Zambia coast of Lake Tanganyika in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Eretmodus cyanostictus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chimba fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Eretmodus cyanostictus, the Tanganyika clown or striped goby cichlid, is a small, stout-bodied fish endemic to Lake Tanganyika that lives where almost nothing else does: the wave-battered surge zone in the first meter or two of water along rocky shores. To survive the surf it has traded buoyancy and swimming ability for a heavy body, a reduced swim bladder, and a habit of hopping over the rocks like a marine goby. Most remarkably for a mouthbrooder, it is a monogamous biparental species in which the female and then the male each carry the brood in turn, a rare arrangement that has made it a favorite subject of behavioral research.
Full Eretmodus cyanostictus account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Eretmodus cyanostictus "Chimba"
- Eretmodus cyanostictus (Boulenger, 1898) — FishBase species summary
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (Eretmodus / cyanostictus entries)
- Eretmodus cyanostictus Boulenger, 1898 — GBIF
- Morley & Balshine (2003), Reproductive biology of Eretmodus cyanostictus, a cichlid fish from Lake Tanganyika — Environmental Biology of Fishes
- Taylor, Morley, Rico & Balshine (2003), Evidence for genetic monogamy and female-biased dispersal in Eretmodus cyanostictus — Molecular Ecology