Lethrinops sp. "Yellow Collar" "Liwani"
Liwani — lee-WAH-nee (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 sp. "Yellow Collar" account →Specific to Liwani
- 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 sp. "Yellow Collar".
The Liwani population
Lethrinops sp. "Yellow Collar" "Liwani" is the Liwani population of Lethrinops sp. "Yellow Collar", 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 Lethrinops sp. "Yellow Collar", distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Liwani fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Lethrinops sp. "Yellow Collar" is an undescribed sand-dwelling cichlid of Lake Malawi, known to hobbyists and field workers only by this trade name and not by any formally published binomial. It belongs to the Lethrinops group of open-water haplochromines — slender, silvery fish with an oblique, protrusible mouth built for sifting invertebrates out of sand rather than scraping algae off rock, the niche that defines the mbuna. The name refers to a yellow band across the nape and upper operculum that breeding males show, set against the more muted grey-blue body typical of the genus. It has been recorded at scattered localities spanning much of the length of the Malawian shoreline, from Masimbwe Island in the north to Harbour Island in the south. No authority, publication year, FishBase number, or Red List status exists for this form.
Full Lethrinops sp. "Yellow Collar" account →