Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Fossorochromis rostratus

Fossorochromis rostratus "Mbamba Islands"

Mbamba Islands — m-BAHM-bah EYE-landz (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 Fossorochromis rostratus account →

Specific to Mbamba Islands

  • 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 Fossorochromis rostratus.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size13.8 in35 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Depth0–59 ft0–18 m
DietSand-sifting invertivore
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~50–130 eggs (reported up to 200)
Sexual dimorphismYesBreeding males turn blackish-blue with turquoise, often erasing the blotches; females and non-dominant males stay silver with three rows of dark blotches, and subordinate males mimic female coloration.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Mbamba Islands population

Fossorochromis rostratus "Mbamba Islands" is the Mbamba Islands population of Fossorochromis rostratus, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Fossorochromis rostratus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Mbamba Islands fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Fossorochromis rostratus is the bulldozer of Lake Malawi's sandy shallows: a large, silver-and-spotted haplochromine that feeds by ramming its pointed snout into the substrate, taking a mouthful of sand, and spitting out everything that isn't a midge larva. It is the only member of its genus, endemic to the lake and its outflow, and famous among divers and aquarists alike for a startling party trick — when a net or a predator closes in, it dives headfirst into the sand and vanishes. Hardy and common in the wild, it is nonetheless a fish that asks a great deal of the aquarist who wants to keep it well: room to swim, sand to dig, and tolerance for a male that can turn a six-foot tank into his private kingdom.

Full Fossorochromis rostratus account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Fossorochromis rostratus "Mbamba Islands"
  2. Catalog of Fishes (Eschmeyer) — Tilapia rostrata / Fossorochromis rostratus
  3. FishBase — Fossorochromis rostratus summary
  4. GBIF — Fossorochromis rostratus occurrence search
  5. ITIS — Fossorochromis rostratus (TSN 649019)
  6. Eccles & Trewavas (1989), Malawian cichlid fishes: classification of some haplochromine genera — cited in Catalog of Fishes (erection of genus Fossorochromis)