Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha "Ntekete"
Ntekete — n-teh-KEH-teh (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 Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha account →Specific to Ntekete
- 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 Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha.
The Ntekete population
Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha "Ntekete" is the Ntekete population of Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the south-central part of the lake. It is the same species as Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Ntekete fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha is a Lake Malawi cichlid that earns its keep as a botanist among predators: it makes its living grazing the thin film of algae that coats the strap-shaped leaves of underwater Vallisneria. Often rolling onto its flank to work a single leaf from base to tip with a spade-shaped lower jaw, it is one of the lake's most specialized plant-grazers. Endemic to the Malawi basin and widespread within it, the "Giant Hap" is a large, blue-flushed member of the lake's non-mbuna "hap" radiation that remains uncommon in aquaria.
Full Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha account →Sources
- malawi.si — Hemitilapia oxyrhyncha "Ntekete"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Hemitilapia oxyrhynchus (Boulenger 1902)
- FishBase: Hemitilapia oxyrhynchus (Giant Haplochromis)
- FishBase Field Guide: Hemitilapia oxyrhynchus
- BioLib: Hemitilapia oxyrhynchus links and literature
- Fryer & Iles (1972), The Cichlid Fishes of the Great Lakes of Africa, as summarized in M.K. Oliver's Trophic Adaptations of Lake Malawi cichlids