Gnathochromis pfefferi "Cape Chaitika"
Cape Chaitika — KAYP chah-ee-TEE-kah (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 pfefferi account →Specific to Cape Chaitika
- 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 pfefferi.
The Cape Chaitika population
Gnathochromis pfefferi "Cape Chaitika" is the Cape Chaitika population of Gnathochromis pfefferi, 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 pfefferi, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Cape Chaitika fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Gnathochromis pfefferi is a modest grey-brown predator of Lake Tanganyika's shallow margins, a haplochromine that earns its keep hunting shrimp among sand and rubble all around the lake. For more than a century it bounced between genera, and in 2024 it was finally given one of its own — Jabarichromis — making the fish most aquarists still buy as 'Gnathochromis' pfefferi a monotypic genus and a textbook case of how molecular phylogenetics keeps rewriting the lake's family tree. It is one of the few Tanganyikan mouthbrooders in which the male is reported to share brood care, which makes an otherwise plain fish quietly interesting.
Full Gnathochromis pfefferi account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Gnathochromis pfefferi "Cape Chaitika"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — pfefferi (Paratilapia), current status valid as Jabarichromis pfefferi (Boulenger 1898)
- FishBase — Jabarichromis pfefferi (Boulenger, 1898) [formerly Gnathochromis pfefferi]
- Haefeli, Schedel, Ronco, Indermaur & Salzburger 2024 — Revision of Gnathochromis with description of the new genus Jabarichromis (Zootaxa 5410(3):434–450)
- Paugy, Lévêque & Teugels (eds.) — The Inland Water Fishes of Africa (notes Ota & Kohda: in G. pfefferi the male home range differs from the breeding territory)
- Rossiter / Kawanabe et al. — Patterns and Processes of Speciation in Ancient Lakes (cites Ota & Kohda on courtship and male feeding in Gnathochromis pfefferi)