Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Labeotropheus fuelleborni

Labeotropheus fuelleborni "Thumbi West Island"

Thumbi West Island — TOOM-bee WEST EYE-land (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 Labeotropheus fuelleborni account →

Specific to Thumbi West Island

  • 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 Labeotropheus fuelleborni.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size5.9 in15 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Depth3–26 ft1–8 m
DietScrapes aufwuchs (algae) from rock
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~20-60 eggs, scaling with female size
Sexual dimorphismYesMales brilliant blue (often barred, with orange anal-fin egg-spots); females blue-grey barred or an orange-blotch (OB)/marmalade morph mottled black, orange and white.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Thumbi West Island population

Labeotropheus fuelleborni "Thumbi West Island" is the Thumbi West Island population of Labeotropheus fuelleborni, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the southern part of the lake. It is the same species as Labeotropheus fuelleborni, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

Colour reference: living Thumbi West Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Labeotropheus fuelleborni, the blue mbuna, is a rock-grazing cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi and one of the most instantly recognizable members of the lake's mbuna flock. Its fleshy, overhanging snout sits above a downturned mouth packed with chisel-shaped teeth — a purpose-built rasp for scraping the algal turf, or aufwuchs, off rocks. It is also a textbook case of explosive color variation: populations differ island to island, and females come in a barred blue-grey form and a patchwork orange-blotch (OB) morph, a polymorphism that has made the genus a favorite subject for evolutionary biologists.

Full Labeotropheus fuelleborni account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Labeotropheus fuelleborni "Thumbi West Island"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Labeotropheus fuelleborni
  3. FishBase — Labeotropheus fuelleborni (Blue mbuna)
  4. FishBase — Reproduction summary, Labeotropheus fuelleborni
  5. USGS NAS — Blue mbuna (Labeotropheus fuelleborni) species profile
  6. Konings, A. — Cichlids Yearbook vol. 2 (Cichlid Press): Labeotropheus fuelleborni colour morphs, sympatry & localities (Katale, Mumbo, Mbenji)