Lamprologus speciosus "Bilila (Kavala) Island"black ocellatus
Neolamprologus speciosus (Bilila (Kavala) Island, Cape Tembwe, Kapampa, Kitumba, Kizike, Moba)
Bilila (Kavala) Island — bee-LEE-lah kah-VAH-lah 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 Neolamprologus speciosus account →Specific to Bilila (Kavala) 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 Neolamprologus speciosus.
The Bilila (Kavala) Island population
Lamprologus speciosus "Bilila (Kavala) Island" is the Bilila (Kavala) Island population of Lamprologus speciosus, a geographic colour form from the Democratic Republic of the Congo coast of Lake Tanganyika in the northern part of the lake. It is the same species as Lamprologus speciosus, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Bilila (Kavala) Island fish at tanganyika.si →
About the species
Neolamprologus speciosus is a diminutive shell-dwelling cichlid endemic to the southwestern reaches of Lake Tanganyika, where it spends its life on open sand around the empty shells of the snail Neothauma. Rarely topping 2.5 inches (2.5 in), it packs the full repertoire of cichlid behavior — courtship, harem polygyny, and ferocious territoriality — into one of the smallest packages in the lake. In the trade it is usually sold as the "black ocellatus," a nod to its close kinship with the better-known Neolamprologus ocellatus.
Full Neolamprologus speciosus account →Sources
- tanganyika.si — Lamprologus speciosus "Bilila (Kavala) Island"
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — species record for Lamprologus speciosus (current status: Neolamprologus speciosus, Büscher 1991)
- FishBase — Lamprologus speciosus summary (Büscher, 1991)
- Büscher, H.H. 1991. Neue Schneckencichliden aus dem Tanganjikasee. DATZ 44(6):374–382 (original description; via Catalog of Fishes reference)
- O'Reilly, C.M. et al. 2003. Climate change decreases aquatic ecosystem productivity of Lake Tanganyika, Africa. Nature 424:766–768
- Cohen, A.S. et al. 2016. Climate warming reduces fish production and benthic habitat in Lake Tanganyika. PNAS 113(34):9563–9568
- IUCN Red List — Lamprologus speciosus "Bilila (Kavala) Island"