Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Lethrinops altus

Lethrinops altus "Harbour Island"

Harbour Island — HAR-ber 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 Lethrinops altus account →

Specific to Harbour 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 Lethrinops altus.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size6.2 in15.8 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth66–262 ft20–80 m
DietSand-sifting benthic invertivore (takes invertebrates from the sand; FishBase)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (inferred from genus; lek-style sand spawning)not documented for L. altus; sand-dwelling Lethrinops congeners typically carry only a few dozen eggs/fry
Sexual dimorphismYesGenus-typical: females/non-breeders silvery and countershaded; mature males develop nuptial colour and prolonged finnage. Species-specific live-colour notes are sparse.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Harbour Island population

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

Colour reference: living Harbour Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Lethrinops altus is a deep-bodied, sediment-sifting haplochromine cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, described by Ethelwynn Trewavas in her 1931 revision of the genus. It lives over deeper sandy and intermediate bottoms — generally around 20 to 80 m — where it works the substrate for buried invertebrates in the manner typical of the genus. Its name, Latin for 'tall' or 'deep', refers to its comparatively deep body; in the field it is distinguished from its close relatives partly by its hooked maxillae and the markedly curved lower profile of the head.

Full Lethrinops altus account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Lethrinops altus "Harbour Island"
  2. FishBase — Lethrinops altus (Trewavas, 1931)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Lethrinops altus (species record; type data, holotype BMNH 1930.1.31.102)
  4. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Lethrinops (genus record)
  5. Trewavas, E. 1931. A revision of the cichlid fishes of the genus Lethrinops. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (10) 7: 133–153 (original description, p. 146)
  6. Turner, G. F. 2022. A new species of deep-water Lethrinops (Cichlidae) from Lake Malawi. Journal of Fish Biology 101(6):1405–1410 (genus context; altus distinguished by hooked maxillae and curved lower head profile, lower gillrakers 10–11)