Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia emmiltos

Maylandia emmiltos "Mphanga Rocks"

Mphanga Rocks — m-PAHN-gah ROKS (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 emmiltos account →

Specific to Mphanga Rocks

  • 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 emmiltos.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.3 in8.4 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth3–49 ft1–15 m
DietAufwuchs grazer; also a frequent plankton feeder in open water
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooderNot published as a figure for this species; modest (zebra-group typical)
Sexual dimorphismYesTerritorial males blue with black bars and an orange-red dorsal fin (the 'red top'), plus a black submarginal band in the anal fin; females and non-territorial males much plainer.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Mphanga Rocks population

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

Colour reference: living Mphanga Rocks fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia emmiltos is a rock-dwelling mbuna of the blue-black zebra complex, endemic to the rocky shores around Chilumba in the far north of Lake Malawi, where it is known only from Mphanga Rocks and the nearby Luwino Reef. Breeding males are vividly marked — black bars on a blue body topped by an orange-red dorsal fin — a combination that earned the fish its hobby name, Red Top Zebra, and its epithet, from the Greek for 'tinged red.' Among its zebra-group relatives this red-topped, blue-barred dress is shared almost only with Maylandia pyrsonotos, from which it is separated by fine fin detail.

Full Maylandia emmiltos account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia emmiltos "Mphanga Rocks"
  2. FishBase — Maylandia emmiltos (Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye, 1997), species summary (SpecCode 50177; max 8.4 cm SL; IUCN LC 20 Jun 2018)
  3. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Maylandia emmiltos (species record; valid name, authorship, type locality Mpanga Rocks)
  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 emmiltos etymology (Greek for 'red-tinged,' for the orange dorsal fin of breeding males)
  6. GBIF — Maylandia emmiltos (Stauffer, Bowers, Kellogg & McKaye, 1997), occurrence and taxonomy