Eretmodus cyanostictus "Kiku"
Kiku — KEE-koo (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 Kiku
- 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 Kiku population
Eretmodus cyanostictus "Kiku" is the Kiku population of Eretmodus cyanostictus, a geographic colour form from the Democratic Republic of the Congo coast of Lake Tanganyika in the north-central 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 Kiku 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 "Kiku"
- 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