Maylandia aurora "Jumbo Island"

Jumbo IslandJOOM-boh 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 Maylandia aurora account →

Specific to Jumbo 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 Maylandia aurora.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.4 in8.7 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.8alkaline
Depth7–39 ft2–12 m
DietGrazes aufwuchs (algae & micro-invertebrates) from rock
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~40–70 eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesStrong dichromatism: males blue-backed with golden-yellow breast and yellow dorsal fin; females plain pale blue-grey to light brown with yellow-edged fins. Multiple location color morphs (e.g. brown-backed males at Mbweca/Tumbi Point).
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Jumbo Island population

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

Colour reference: living Jumbo Island fish at malawi.si

About the species

Maylandia aurora is a small, sharply two-toned mbuna endemic to the northern reaches of Lake Malawi, where blue-and-gold males hold court along the seam where rocky reef meets open sand. It is the namesake of the "aurora group," a cluster of look-alike species whose females are so similar they often cannot be told apart by color alone. Long traded under three different genus names, it is a hardy, handsomely colored fish whose biggest in-tank liability is the same temper that makes it interesting in the wild.

Full Maylandia aurora account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia aurora "Jumbo Island"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Pseudotropheus/Maylandia aurora (CAS)
  3. FishBase — Maylandia aurora (Burgess, 1976) summary
  4. FishBase — Synonyms of Maylandia aurora
  5. The ETYFish Project — Pseudocrenilabrinae etymology (aurora)
  6. Ciccotto, Konings & Stauffer 2011, Zootaxa 2738 — Metriaclima aurora treatment (Plazi TreatmentBank)