Maylandia hajomaylandi "Chizumulu Island"
Chizumulu Island — chee-zoo-MOO-loo 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 hajomaylandi account →Specific to Chizumulu 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 hajomaylandi.
The Chizumulu Island population
Maylandia hajomaylandi "Chizumulu Island" is the Chizumulu Island population of Maylandia hajomaylandi, a geographic colour form from the Malawi coast of Lake Malawi in the central part of the lake. It is the same species as Maylandia hajomaylandi, distinguished by its collection locality and local coloration; aquarists keep and breed it as a discrete, provenance-labelled line.
Colour reference: living Chizumulu Island fish at malawi.si →
About the species
Maylandia hajomaylandi is a rock-dwelling mbuna cichlid found in just one place on Earth: the waters around Chizumulu Island, a small outcrop in the open northeastern reaches of Lake Malawi. Breeding males turn steel-blue, ruled across the flank by a row of dark bars and warmed by an orange wash over the head and belly; females stay a muted yellow-brown. It is a fish of the 'intermediate' zone where rock gives way to sand, scraping algae from boulders one moment and picking plankton from open water the next, and it has been worked by the aquarium trade for four decades under the trade name 'Pseudotropheus Greberi'.
Full Maylandia hajomaylandi account →Sources
- malawi.si — Maylandia hajomaylandi "Chizumulu Island"
- Konings, A. (2016) Malawi Cichlids in their Natural Habitat, 5th edition — Cichlid Press (cited as taxonomic source by IUCN; foremost Malawi field authority)
- Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Metriaclima / Maylandia hajomaylandi (species record, spid 57151)
- FishBase — Maylandia hajomaylandi (Meyer & Schartl, 1984)
- Meyer, M.K. & Schartl, M. (1984) Pseudotropheus (Maylandia) hajomaylandi n. sp., a new taxon from Lake Malawi — Revue Française d'Aquariologie et de Herpétologie 11(2): 51-55 (abstract via malawicichlids.com)
- GBIF — Maylandia hajomaylandi (Meyer & Schartl, 1984)