Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia benetos

Maylandia benetos "Chitande Island"

Chitande Island — chee-TAHN-deh 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 benetos account →

Specific to Chitande 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 benetos.

IUCNNEAR THREATENED · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.2 in8.1 cm standard length
Temperature75–79 °F24–26 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth7–49 ft2–15 m
DietGrazes aufwuchs from rock
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderNot documented for the species; genus-typical, on the order of a few dozen eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesTerritorial males clean pale sky-blue, lacking the bold black vertical bars of a typical zebra mbuna (faint barring flushes only when highly aggressive); females brown to brownish-gray with greenish highlights and yellowish dorsal/anal pigment. Males larger and territorial.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chitande Island population

Maylandia benetos "Chitande Island" is the Chitande Island population of Maylandia benetos, 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 Maylandia benetos, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.

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

About the species

Maylandia benetos is a small, sky-blue rock-dwelling cichlid (an mbuna) endemic to a single cluster of reefs in the far southeastern arm of Lake Malawi. Described in 1997 from Mazinzi Reef, it belongs to the genus's aurora group, set apart from most of its relatives by the near-absence of the bold black bars that mark a typical zebra mbuna. Beyond the hobby it is best known to science as a model for color vision: laboratory work has shown that this fish genuinely perceives color, not just brightness, a finding that bears on how the lake's cichlids recognize mates and split into new species.

Full Maylandia benetos account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia benetos "Chitande Island"
  2. FishBase: Maylandia benetos (species summary, ID 50174)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Maylandia benetos (CAS)
  4. Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye 1997 — Revision of the blue-black Pseudotropheus zebra complex (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 148:189-230)
  5. Behavioral color vision in a cichlid fish: Metriaclima benetos (Escobar-Camacho et al., J. Exp. Biol., PMC)
  6. Color discrimination thresholds in a cichlid fish: Metriaclima benetos (J. Exp. Biol. 222:jeb201160)