Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia gallireyae

Maylandia gallireyae "Gallireya Reef"

Gallireya Reef — gah-lee-REH-yah REEF (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 gallireyae account →

Specific to Gallireya Reef

  • 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 gallireyae.

IUCNNOT EVALUATED
NEnot on the EX–LC scale
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size2.8 in7 cm total length
Temperature75–82 °F24–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth—not recorded
DietOpportunistic omnivore: combs algae from shells and rocks, picks invertebrates, takes plankton
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder (shell-associated)Not published; small (small-bodied species)
Sexual dimorphismYesMature males dark brown-to-blue, obscuring the flank bars; females retain visible bars extending onto the abdomen over a lighter ground.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Gallireya Reef population

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

Colour reference: living Gallireya Reef fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia gallireyae is a small, shell-dwelling mbuna described in 2021 from Gallireya Reef in the north of Lake Malawi. Unusually for its genus — which is dominated by rock-bound aufwuchs grazers — it lives over sand among empty gastropod shells, into which females release their fry, a habit otherwise far better known from Lake Tanganyika. Long passed around in the hobby as the provisional 'Metriaclima sp. lanisticola north,' it was finally named, alongside its sister species Maylandia ngarae, for the reef where it was found.

Full Maylandia gallireyae account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia gallireyae "Gallireya Reef"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Maylandia gallireyae (species record spid 76756; valid name, authorship Miller, Konings & Stauffer 2021, type locality Gallireya Reef 10.500153S 34.233362E, holotype PSU 13370)
  3. Miller, T.A., Konings, A.F. & Stauffer, J.R. 2021 — Descriptions of two new shell-dwelling species of Metriaclima (Cichlidae) from Lake Malawi, Africa. Zootaxa 5052(3):419–432 (original description)
  4. The ETYFish Project — Cichlidae: Maylandia gallireyae etymology ('of Gallireya Reef,' the type locality in Youngs Bay)
  5. Miller, Konings & Stauffer 2021 — open thesis chapter: 'Descriptions of two new Metriaclima species and one new Tropheops...' (Pennsylvania State University electronic theses & dissertations; description figures and locality map)
  6. GBIF — Maylandia gallireyae (Miller, Konings & Stauffer, 2021), taxonomy