Gnathochromis permaxillaris "Chituta Bay"
Chituta Bay — chee-TOO-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 Gnathochromis permaxillaris account →Specific to Chituta 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 Gnathochromis permaxillaris.
The Chituta Bay population
Gnathochromis permaxillaris "Chituta Bay" is the Chituta Bay population of Gnathochromis permaxillaris, a geographic colour form from the Zambia coast of Lake Tanganyika in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Gnathochromis permaxillaris, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chituta Bay fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Gnathochromis permaxillaris is a deepwater cichlid endemic to Lake Tanganyika, instantly recognizable by the absurdly extended upper lip that folds down into a fleshy, downward-facing nozzle. It uses that nozzle exactly as it looks: as a vacuum, hovering over soft mud and sand and inhaling a mouthful of substrate to filter out hidden invertebrates, much like a South American eartheater on the other side of the world. Rare in the wild and rarer still in the hobby, it is one of the lake's more singular feeding specialists.
Full Gnathochromis permaxillaris account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Gnathochromis permaxillaris "Chituta Bay"
- Gnathochromis permaxillaris — FishBase species summary
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes (CAS) — Gnathochromis / permaxillaris
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy — Gnathochromis permaxillaris (David, 1936)
- Haefeli, Schedel, Ronco, Indermaur & Salzburger (2024) — Revision of the cichlid genus Gnathochromis, with Jabarichromis gen. nov. (Zootaxa 5410(3))
- Duftner, Koblmuller & Sturmbauer (2005) — Evolutionary relationships of the Limnochromini, benthic deepwater cichlids of Lake Tanganyika (J. Mol. Evol.)