Aquarist Atlas
↑ Collection form of Maylandia melissa

Maylandia melissa "Chilumba"

Chilumba — chee-LOOM-bah (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 melissa account →

Specific to Chilumba

  • 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 melissa.

IUCNNOT EVALUATED
NEnot on the EX–LC scale
CARESNOT LISTED
Scientific size4.7 in12 cm total length
Temperature73–82 °F23–28 °C
pH7.7–8.6alkaline
Depth16–131 ft5–40 m
DietAufwuchs grazer (diatoms, algal strands) of the rock-and-sand intermediate zone; opportunistic plankton/invertebrates
BreedingMaternal mouthbrooder~20 eggs reported for the constituent forms (hobby); not formally published for the consolidated species
Sexual dimorphismYesTerritorial males dark with blue-to-yellow flank stripes and black-edged yellow dorsal and caudal fins, varying among the four constituent forms; females uniform grey and striped across the complex, slightly smaller.
PhotographsSee photosGoogle Images →

The Chilumba population

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

Colour reference: living Chilumba fish at malawi.si →

About the species

Maylandia melissa is a slender, rock-dwelling mbuna of the north-western shore of Lake Malawi, described in 2023 to unite four 'elongate' colour forms long known to hobbyists as the bee, chailosi, chewere and matambukira morphs of Maylandia. Territorial males carry a dark body striped blue-to-yellow with a black-edged yellow dorsal and tail; females and immatures of the four forms are indistinguishable, which is why the describers folded them into a single, geographically variable species. It grazes aufwuchs across the rock-and-sand habitat of a roughly 12-kilometre coast around Chitande Island.

Full Maylandia melissa account →

Sources

  1. malawi.si — Maylandia melissa "Chilumba"
  2. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes — Maylandia melissa (species record; valid name, authorship Stauffer & Konings 2023, type locality Chitande Island)
  3. Stauffer, J.R. Jr. & Konings, A.F. 2023 — description of Metriaclima melissa, a geographically variable elongate rock-dwelling cichlid from Lake Malaŵi, consolidating the 'elongatus' bee/chailosi/chewere/matambukira forms (Zootaxa, original description)
  4. GBIF — Maylandia melissa / Metriaclima melissa (occurrence and taxonomy)