Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Lethrinops furcifer

Lethrinops furcifer "Karonga"

Karonga — kah-ROHN-gah (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 furcifer account →

Specific to Karonga

  • 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 furcifer.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size7.7 in19.5 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth7–49 ft2–15 m
DietSand-sifting benthic invertivore (insect larvae, small crustaceans); opportunistic plankton feeder
BreedingPolygynous maternal mouthbrooder; lek-spawner on open sand~30–80 eggs (genus-typical estimate; furcifer-specific clutch size unpublished)
Sexual dimorphismYesMales develop brilliant iridescent green facial suffusion, deep blue-grey body and egg-spotted anal fin in breeding dress; females and non-dominant males are pale silvery-tan with irregular dark lateral blotching.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Karonga population

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

Colour reference: living Karonga fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Lethrinops furcifer, the greenface sandsifter, is a sand-dwelling haplochromine cichlid endemic to Lake Malawi, found over open sandy shallows from the Tanzanian shore to the Mozambican arm. Males are dressed in a metallic blue-green with a vivid, iridescent emerald suffusion across the face — the feature that names the fish in both the hobby and the FishBase common-name — while they sift invertebrates from the sand with a technique that mirrors the lake's eartheaters. Though routinely sold under the trade labels "green face" and "green head", it was formally described by Ethelwynn Trewavas in 1931 and remains a valid, long-standing member of the genus Lethrinops, not transferred to Tramitichromis as sometimes stated in the hobby.

Full Lethrinops furcifer account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Lethrinops furcifer "Karonga"
  2. FishBase — Lethrinops furcifer (Greenface sandsifter), species page
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Lethrinops furcifer Trewavas, 1931 (species record, spid=38132)
  4. GBIF — Lethrinops furcifer Trewavas, 1931 (taxon key 2372747; syntypes NHMUK ZOO 1930.1.31.181-188 and 190-191)
  5. Trewavas, E. (1931) — A revision of the cichlid fishes of the genus Lethrinops Regan. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 10, 7: 133–152 (original description)
  6. malawi.si — Lethrinops furcifer 'Makuzi Beach' (biotope, size, diet, distribution data)