Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia chrysomallos

Maylandia chrysomallos "Chiofu"

Chiofu — chee-OH-foo (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 chrysomallos account →

Specific to Chiofu

  • 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 chrysomallos.

IUCNNEAR THREATENED · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.5 in9 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth3–16 ft1–5 m
DietAufwuchs grazer (algae, diatoms and cyanobacteria scraped from rock)
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderNot recorded for this species; small (inferred from zebra-group congeners)
Sexual dimorphismYesBoth sexes light blue with gold highlights and dark bars that extend into the dorsal fin; territorial males show the cleanest blue-and-gold pattern, females and non-territorial males duller.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chiofu population

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

Colour reference: living Chiofu fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia chrysomallos is a rock-dwelling mbuna of the blue-black zebra complex, endemic to the south-eastern arm of Lake Malawi where it grazes aufwuchs from boulders at the islands off Cape Maclear and on the Malawi–Mozambique border. Its name, from the Greek for 'golden fleece,' captures the warm gold sheen that overlays the light-blue, black-barred flanks of both sexes — a feature unusual among its zebra-group relatives. A maternal mouthbrooder and a typically pugnacious mbuna, it is one of the five rock-cichlid species named in the 1997 revision that split the old Pseudotropheus zebra into a genus of its own.

Full Maylandia chrysomallos account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia chrysomallos "Chiofu"
  2. FishBase — Maylandia chrysomallos (Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye, 1997), species summary (SpecCode 50171; max 9.0 cm SL; IUCN NT 2018; coloration & meristics)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Maylandia chrysomallos (species record spid 64699; valid name, authorship, type locality Mumbo Island, holotype PSU 3052)
  4. Stauffer, J.R. Jr., Bowers, N.J., Kellogg, K.A. & McKaye, K.R. 1997 — A revision of the blue-black Pseudotropheus zebra (Teleostei: Cichlidae) complex from Lake Malawi, Africa, with a description of a new genus and ten new species. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. 148:189–230 (original description)
  5. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae: Maylandia chrysomallos etymology ('chrysos' gold + 'mallos' wool/fleece, for the gold highlights of both sexes)
  6. GBIF — Maylandia chrysomallos (Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye, 1997), occurrence and taxonomy