Maylandia greshakei "Makokola Reef"
Makokola Reef — mah-koh-KOH-lah 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 greshakei account →Specific to Makokola 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 greshakei.
The Makokola Reef population
Maylandia greshakei "Makokola Reef" is the Makokola Reef population of Maylandia greshakei, 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 greshakei, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Makokola Reef fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Maylandia greshakei — the 'Ice Blue' of the aquarium trade — is a zebra-type mbuna restricted to a single sediment-dusted reef in the far southeastern arm of Lake Malawi. It is best known for an unusual reversal of the usual mbuna colour rule: here it is the territorial males who wear the cool cobalt-blue body, while the females and subordinate fish stay a plain sandy brown — both sexes lit by a vivid orange-red dorsal fin. Endemic to Makokola Reef and nowhere else, it is one of the most narrowly distributed cichlids kept in the hobby, yet remains common at home because it is too small and too rock-bound for local fishermen to bother with.
Full Maylandia greshakei account →Sources
- malawi.si — Maylandia greshakei "Makokola Reef"
- FishBase — Maylandia greshakei (William's mbuna)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — greshakei, Pseudotropheus (Meyer & Förster 1984); holotype SMF 17846, type locality Makokola; valid as Maylandia greshakei
- malawi.si — Maylandia greshakei 'Makokola' (M.K. Oliver / Konings species database; type locality, biotope, depth, dimorphism, breeding, narrow-endemic notes)
- Cichlid Room Companion — Metriaclima greshakei (Ad Konings; taxonomy, original description, conservation note that it remains common at Makokola Reef)
- Meyer, M.K. & Foerster, W. (1984) — 'Un nouveau Pseudotropheus du lac Malawi avec des remarques sur le complexe Pseudotropheus-Melanochromis', Revue française d'Aquariologie et Herpétologie 10(4):107-112 (original description)