Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia flavifemina

Maylandia flavifemina "Thumbi West Island"

Thumbi West Island — TOOM-bee WEST 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 flavifemina account →

Specific to Thumbi West 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 flavifemina.

IUCNLEAST CONCERN · 2018
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size3.3 in8.5 cm standard length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth13–164 ft4–50 m
DietAufwuchs grazer (diatoms, algal strands); supplemented by benthic crustaceans and plankton
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder10–30 eggs
Sexual dimorphismYesMales blue with 8–10 dark vertical bars, black anal fin and black caudal-fin membranes, often with orange-red cheek patch (Maleri/Chidunga populations). Females and juveniles light blue-beige to bright yellow with yellow anal fin; coloration varies by locality.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Thumbi West Island population

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

Colour reference: living Thumbi West Island fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia flavifemina is a small mbuna cichlid endemic to a handful of rocky islands in the southwestern arm of Lake Malawi, where it occupies deeper, sediment-dusted boulder habitats that most of its relatives avoid. The fish's common name in the hobby — 'yellow female' — is a literal translation of its Latin epithet and describes exactly what makes it instantly recognisable: while males are a barred blue-black, females and juveniles glow uniform yellow, a colour so distinctive it was noted in the first systematic survey of the lake's rockfish before the species even had a formal name. Confined to six known localities entirely within Lake Malawi National Park, it is one of the more geographically restricted members of a genus famous for narrow-range endemism.

Full Maylandia flavifemina account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia flavifemina "Thumbi West Island"
  2. Konings, A.F. & Stauffer, J.R. Jr. (2006) — Revised diagnosis of Metriaclima (Teleostei: Cichlidae) with description of a new species from Lake Malawi National Park, Africa. Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwat. 17(3):233–246 [original description]
  3. FishBase — Maylandia flavifemina (Konings & Stauffer, 2006)
  4. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — flavifemina, Metriaclima (species record, current status: valid as Maylandia flavifemina)
  5. CLOFFA / FaunAFri (Royal Museum for Central Africa) — Maylandia flavifemina type locality and synonymy record
  6. Ribbink, A.J., Marsh, B.A., Marsh, A.C., Ribbink, A.C. & Sharp, B.J. (1983) — A preliminary survey of the cichlid fishes of rocky habitats in Lake Malawi. South African Journal of Zoology 18(3):149–310